The Healing Light
Artist
Daniel Galvez
Year1998
Classification
painting
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions4 x 52 ft. (121.9 x 1584.9 cm)
Credits
Commissioned through the Art in Architecture Program
Fine Arts Collection
U.S. General Services Administration
Fine Arts Collection
U.S. General Services Administration
- The Healing Light refers to the light of nature and the inner light of the healing professional. The central figure is the Greek physician Aesculapius, a revered doctor of both the Greeks and Romans whose power to heal was extraordinary. His snake-coiled
staff still symbolizes the physician today. The light shining through the trees represents nature's life force and the energy necessary for plants, animals, and humans to exist. The operating scene represents the harnessed light of the laser used in surgery. The hands represent those in life that hold us as infants and later in life are the same hands that become frail and require help and care from others. The doctors representing the medical profession are Dr. Michael DeBakey, who conducted one of the first attempts to implant an artificial human heart, and Dr. Alexa Canady, who became, at age thirty, the first African-American female neurosurgeon in the United States. The cells surrounding Aesculapius are those found in all of us representing the colors of our skin and the blood that flows through our veins. The other images, from left to right, are grape vines, poppy fields, oceans, and oat fields. The Healing Light was designed to complement the warm, natural wood and strong horizontal and vertical lines of the entrance lobby.
- John Ahearn (b. 1951, Binghamton, New York) and Rigoberto Torres (b. 1960, Aguadilla, Puerto Rico)1997
- John Ahearn (b. 1951, Binghamton, New York) and Rigoberto Torres (b. 1960, Aguadilla, Puerto Rico)1997
