Fadi Balhawan

Here we have a painter with the soul of a poet, a writer, eyes that can read images and write the stories and messages they hold rather than just paint them. Fadi Balhawan was born in Beirut in 1966. In his early days, he started to make his way studying business administration at the American University of Beirut, but to him, that wasn’t enough, or not what he really wanted.

You see in 1976 he was heavily injured by a bomb explosion in Hamra street and he had to spend several months at home after he spent a good amount of time at the hospital, and the only thing that kept him alive and kept his soul breathing during this time was painting and writing.

It was then that he decided to start planning on coming out as an artist and start spreading his vision to the entire world to see, read, and hear. His biggest inspiration was and still is, the culture of writers. From religious books to the latest young poets, they were all his main sources of inspiration. His fuel was to turn their messages into art, a painting where you can see the story and read it all at once, a burst of emotions conveyed through the strokes of a brush.

Concluding with his own words that I couldn’t have said any better, “My message is to stimulate people to read. In my Art; from far you see a colorful design, if you get nearer, you see words, put together, there are beautiful messages.”