Exhibition: Chemistry in the garden: paintings by Nina Krauzewicz

Discover the hidden healing depths of the Royal College of Physicians' remarkable medicinal garden.

Artist Nina Krauzewicz spent a year in residence at the garden in 2014 creating a series of delicate and beautiful images of plants with a purpose.

From skin-friendly witch hazel to poisonous deadly nightshade, narcotic opium poppy to ricinus communis, provider of both foul-tasting but nourishing castor oil and lethal ricin, her paintings capture the entrancing appearance of the organisms and hint at their fascinating histories.

Nina’s works appear alongside explanations of how the plants have been used across the centuries to soothe, poison and purge as part of herbal remedies, and their continuing role in medicine: analysed, modified and synthesised for modern use.

The display also features highlights from the RCP’s own extensive collections, including some of the very earliest engravings of medical botany. Do visit the medicinal garden itself, which features over 1,300 specimens from around the world and across the history of medicine.