This episode presents four artists whose works or personal stories transport viewers to imaginary worlds and altered states of consciousness. With works that seem at times hallucinatory, irreverent and sublime, each of these artists pursues a vision first held in the mind’s eye.

Jeff Koons utilizes symbolically charged images and objects from popular culture to frame his questions about taste and pleasure in modern society. His painstakingly crafted artworks, perfected by a small army of studio assistants in a modern version of a Renaissance atelier, were recently exhibited at a groundbreaking and controversial installation at the Chateau de Versailles. Mary Heilmann filters her inner world through her work, imbuing abstract paintings, ceramics and furniture with references to memories and aesthetic influences ranging from popular music to her own Catholic background to cartoons. Florian Maier-Aichen is a German-born landscape photographer who lives in both Los Angeles and Cologne. His works - alternately romantic, cerebral and unearthly - question German Romanticism and myths of the American West. Maier-Aichen's digitally altered finished works contain elements of the original photograph, but veer toward the realm of drawing and fiction rather than more traditional documentation. A young Beijing-based Chinese artist, Cao Fei, creates videos, photos and new media works that explore perception, reality and inner lives in places as diverse as a Chinese factory and the virtual world of Second Life.