After the cultural revolution in China and the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, many Chinese artists turned to art as their platform to express political views, often incorporating or using Western art as the inspiration for their work.  Since these Chinese artists who first entered the art world, the West has formed a preconception of contemporary Chinese art as being very political and dissident, only accepting work that conforms to their view of what art from China should look like.  I attempt to present a more diverse journey into the plethora of contemporary Chinese art, focusing not only on how political activism is integrated into Chinese art, but also at how artists express personal and societal struggles through their work, innovations being made within the art world, and the future of contemporary Chinese art.  In addition, I will explore the diaspora of Chinese American artists, contrasting the mainland China perception of western culture with that of those immersed in it.