Willow pattern plates were prevalent when I was young - a chinese romance by numbers in blue and white china. I remember the bridge and the moody looking trees and a little bit about the texture and patterns but not much more. Willow plate was a decorative mood rather than an image, a collision of two kinds of figurative and cultural code, prescribed by the age of reason.

Mo Zhai’s paintings are similar, but full colour, head on crashes of the western pictorial tradition mainly drawn from sixteenth and seventeenth century easel painting and Chinese figurative conventions and sensibility -from pink and red or green theatrical face make up to landscapes forms. Within the framework of possible formal relationships that this produces, odd quotations from other periods appear - the picassoid look of many of the faces for instance.

In these post modern times stylistic bricollage like this barely rates a mention It can be as decorative as anything else. It does not have huge implications for our cultural future. Indeed, Mo Zhai’s multi-referential images key well into mundane middle class reality from christmas cards to strolls in the landscape. If the work has a western predecessor it is Chagall, whose sweet lyrical modernity was also born of a clash of two codes of vision - Russian peasant and Parisian cubist.

One painting shows a woman with an umbrella walking in the rain in front of a curved road perspective and three story office block whose windows each show the head and shoudlers of one bemused worker. Next to her is a no entry sign, pole bent to counter the curve of the road. By contrast the detailed facture of stormy sky and dark shadows is handled with all the energy and texture of an old ink painting. It seems cultures can collide productively in style and attitude not just imagery.

The imagery of most Christian moments was codified in the first century or so. This was when the Annunciation, or the Flight into Egypt were first identified as worth illustrating in stone or paint and codified along with the rest of the familiar imagery. The dramatic requirements of the Annunciation made it specially suitable for the development of codes for three dimensional represenatation - an angel moving through one inner space towards another in which the virgin, whose extreme composure is about to be shattered, just begged for some visual theatrics.

Mo Zhai tackles both subjects but sees these well worn, christian logos, more as challenges to develop an attractive presentation than to contribute to our understanding of them within the European tradition of imaging not just physical but also the psychological aspects of the moment. There is nothing wrong with this, its just that its hard to get beyond the decorative, to rise above the charm of a decadent guessing game. No doubt, it is the very visual codification of the Christian story that suggests the relation to Chinese forms. It is not often noticed that European painting is built on a foundation of codified poses and placement as least at strong os the hieroglyhics of Chinese painting. This is an enjoyable show with lots to be discovered.