Blanka Amezkua—Power Flower: Curative Flora

Power Flower: Curative Flora presents an ongoing series of work by Blanka Amezkua honoring the healing powers of plants described in the 1552 Codex de la Cruz-Badiano. A significant text in the history of both botany and medicine, the Codex contains Nahua, Mesoamerican medicinal recipes created by Indigenous doctors from College of Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco, the physician Martín de la Cruz and the doctor and translator Juan Badiano. The manuscript includes 185 illustrations and descriptions of curative plants and other organic matter alongside remedies for specific body parts from head to toe, each chapter focusing on a different area such as the eyes, mouth, and chest, as well as the body’s transition into death.  

As a child, Amezkua visited curanderos (traditional healers of Latin America) with her grandmother. Then, as a means of cultural preservation and celebration, she first started working with the Codex as a Winter Workspace artist-in-residence at Wave Hill in 2022, incorporating its teachings, text, and images into drawings, collages, and papel picado (traditional Mexican cut-paper banners, which she made in collaboration with papel picado maestro Rene Mendoza from Huixcolotla, Puebla).  

Power Flower presents an expanded breadth of works and mediums, at the heart of which are thirteen paintings, each composed of layered outlines of every plant illustrated in each chapter of the Codex. These paintings are adorned with ornate frames that seem to suggest they are revered Painted with a palette of complementary colors against bold, solid backgrounds, the formal elements of these works convey a sense of harmony and wholeness, just as the Codex brings together the relationship between the body’s needs and the natural environment. These striking, colorful plant outlines appear repeatedly throughout the exhibition on textiles, wallpaper, photographs, costumes and papel picado to create a full sense of the multifaceted ways in which Amezkua has immersed her practice and daily life in the wisdom of the Codex. 

Power Flower: Curative Flora is organized by Afriti Bankwalla, Curatorial Administrative Assistant, with Gabriel de Guzman, Director of Arts and Chief Curator, and Rachel Gugelberger, Curator of Visual Arts. 

Meet the Artist: Blanka Amezkua 
Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 12:30-1:30 PM   
Location: Mark Twain Room