Dr. Vicenzio Holder-Perkins, MD

Dr. Vicenzio Holder-Perkins, MD (he/him) is a psychiatrist, educator, and emerging artist whose creative practice was born from necessity after a stroke left half of his body paralyzed. Drawing from decades of work in community mental health, HIV, and AIDS advocacy, and multicultural psychiatry, Perkins brings a rare sensibility to the relationship between embodiment, vulnerability, and recovery. A graduate of UCLA, Johns Hopkins, and George Washington University, he served as Chief of Psychiatry at the Washington DC Veterans Affairs Medical Center and directed multiple behavioral health programs across the region. Following his stroke in 2018, Vicenzio turned to drawing as a therapeutic act, developing a visual language rooted in repetition, asymmetry, and adaptation.

Dr. Perkins’ drawings are not about aesthetic perfection but about creative persistence in the face of loss. They mark a return to expression on his own terms: slow, deliberate, and deeply human. Dr. Perkins is currently working on a book titled “From Practitioner to Patient”, a deeply personal and interdisciplinary project that reflects on his transition from a practicing psychiatrist to a stroke survivor navigating recovery. Blending clinical insight with lived experience, the book examines the limits of medical authority, the emotional landscape of disability, and the transformative role of DC.

Photo & Bio courtesy of the artist.