Precession Of Healing Energy

by Gregory Holden

“I hold a Doctorate in Philosophy from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, a Masters Degree in Philosophy from SIU-C and English from Eastern Illinois University. I am 61-year-old survivor of oral cancer living in Danville, Illinois, who suffers significant complications from surgeries and radiation. As I cannot generally attend festivals, I rely on online submissions to showcase my work. I also was once a reporter for the Danville Commercial-News, but my PTSD made it very difficult to write. I took up painting and digital photography to express what I can no longer write about. I taught philosophy for 28 years, 18 years of which were full-time, before my inability to swallow or speak forced me to retire. In the last few years, I have taught art and film as well. I have been shown at many physical galleries across the U.S., from Hawaii to Rhode Island. I also have been shown in many digital galleries. I love to paint, but lately have taken to digitally manipulating “bad photographs,” structuring the image so that there is an unironic tension in the work between the beautiful and the distressing. This tension is found in all my works – an otherness with a desire for itself (to put it philosophically). This calls into question the artistic object and reference, since I drain the referential content of altered photographs and my paintings. My influences include Modernist Art – Mondrian and Pollack especially – and the rather unclassifiable Gerhard Richter. The work “Precession Of Healing Energy” was originally a closeup photo of ice in a tea glass. That’s interesting on many levels, considering what my manipulation uncovered in the photograph.”