Decoction
My grandfather’s herbal decoction on xuan paper accordion
4x11”
2025
Last summer, my grandfather began making a daily herbal decoction to ease the side effects of his chemotherapy medications, which caused kidney toxicity, fevers and rashes. This book records his formula of 20+ anti-inflammatory herbs, including Curcuma wenyujin and Centella asiatica, often used in TCM to support cancer treatment.
A decoction extracts the essence of things. In studying and painting with these herbs in the style of Li Shizhen’s Materia Medica, I began to see deeper connections between Chinese medicine and art, ancient and contemporary sciences, Eastern and Western knowledge systems that are not competing but complementary. While my medical training values certainty, it also confronts vast unknowns—spaces long held by ancestral, indigenous traditions passed down through generations. This work invites more plural ways of seeing: bodies, histories, and paths to healing that emerge when we remain open.
