Stella Lai investigates the extreme dichotomy found in contemporary Chinese culture. A society once imprinted by the weight of it's imperial history yet propelled by accelterated consumerism and advanced technologies. Lai's highly rendered gouaches incorporate Chinese typography and phrases from Asian advertising campaigns (diet creams, plastic surgery, skin whitening). Using Tibetan Thangka iconography, narrative landscape, flower paintings, and highly structured textitle patterns intermix with internet pronography Lai investigaes the cultrual and societal identity of contemporary China.