Hawthorn Heart

Taoist medicine views our bodies as a microsystem of the natural world. It uses a complex series of “correspondences” such as color, element, and odor to name a few, as diagnostic tools and metaphors to describe the body’s processes. This series of paintings represents the “five zang or yin organs” known as the solid organs and the common herbs used in treating each respective organ.

In this series I explore how the Taoist thought process would have helped inform the selection of each herb for conditions of a given organ. For example the color correspondence of the heart is red like the hawthorn berry and when you closely examine the hawthorn berry it appears to have chambers like the heart.