Hayley Chiu is a second-generation Chinese Canadian painter. Inspired by the long and diverse history of her culture that she was never a part of, she appropriates its imagery and combines them with symbolism from her own life to narrate an existence that transcends time and place. She documents the changes that take place within her surroundings and body and the relationship between the two, embracing the self and the forms that it will continue to adapt. Combining high realism and overtly overlaid images, she breaks the illusion that her paintings are direct representations of reality, but one that explores the mythologies that we create to add charm in a mundane life.