SAAD GHOSN

For the past decade I have been using my art images as vehicles for my social and political views and beliefs, and as a tool toward a possible social change, toward peace and justice. By using metaphors and pointing to what I consider objectionable, I am pointing at the same time to the alternative, to what I consider would contribute to a Better World. Using black and white woodcut prints have allowed me the directness, straightforwardness and starkness of a simplified image to convey my message.

Saad Ghosn je členem Sdružení českých umělců grafiků Hollar od r. 2024.

 

 

 

 

Saad Ghosn, a native of Lebanon, has been living in Cincinnati since 1985. A retired medical professional and educator, a Professor Emeritus of Medicine at the University of Cincinnati, Saad resorts to visual and spoken art to express himself and convey his social and political views.

Saad strongly believes that activism is at the heart of art expression. He is the Founder and President of ‘SOS (Save Our Souls) ART’ (sosartcincinnati.com), a Cincinnati-based organization that promotes the use of arts as vehicle for peace and justice and for a change toward a better world. Through SOS ART more than 4000 local visual artists, more than 700 local poets and many many performers, all ages and backgrounds, have been able to date to share their voice and their messages for a better world. Saad is also the editor and publisher of the yearly ‘For a Better World, Poems and Drawings on Peace and Justice by Greater Cincinnati Artists’, now in its 22nd consecutive year.

Saad thinks that art can inform and challenge and that it can lead the viewer into thinking and into action. He believes that true art is a reflection of the artist in their entirety and that, as a result, activism is at the heart of art expression. He has written about many of Cincinnati’s Artists Activists, including in his book titled: “Greater Cincinnati Artists as Activists” featuring 50 such local artists who use their art to make a change.

For the past few years Saad has mostly used printmaking in his own art. He uses his art images as vehicles for his social and political views and beliefs, and as a tool toward a possible social change, toward peace and justice. He is a recipient of a Cincinnati Individual Artist Grant for his printmaking work that he has shown locally, nationally and internationally in hundreds of solo and group exhibits. His work is in many collections, private and public, including the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Miami University Art Museum.

In addition to his own work, Saad has been curating art shows locally and internationally for the past forty years. His focus is on empowering local and other artists and on promoting their use of art as a vehicle for a change. He has also worked with international artists and printmakers, primarily form Oaxaca/Mexico, Lebanon, Czech Republic, and India, but also from other countries, sharing their works that reflect their social and cultural reality, with Cincinnati’s residents.