Stanley ‘Artgerm’ Lau’s ‘Alice in Wonderland 1’ is a digital illustration, a medium that democratizes artmaking through accessible technologies. The glossy finish and hyperreal style are achieved through digital painting, where layers of color are built up on screen, tweaked, and blended using tools that simulate traditional brushes but allow for endless correction. This process collapses the time usually required for painting and produces a clean, reproducible image, perfectly suited for mass consumption via prints or online platforms. Artgerm’s artmaking speaks to today’s image economy. Here, skill is traded and sold, as the artist has shifted away from traditional notions of the tortured artist to a collaborative model of creating a marketable image. So, next time you see a digital artwork like this one, remember the complex interplay of skill, technology, and market forces that lie beneath its glossy surface, challenging our assumptions about art, labor, and value in the digital age.