Alea Pinar Du Pre is an artist with an immense curiosity in the nature of reality. Her work explores the territory between the world ‘out there’ and our very different 'worlds within’. Her paintings portray the fact that our perceptions of solid reality are deceptively virtual. Her technique also involves a fusion of materials, outlooks and diverse inspirations. Building on the synthetic intensity of digital art, her figurative style depicts a familiar but warped daily life. Her choice of materials - acrylics, printed elements, and layers of gilt captured under an epoxy lens - represents another aspect of the layered reality she aims to depict. Paying tribute to her main influences, Alea describes her style as "Jugendstil Pop-Art". But where Pop was stimulated by the iconography of materialism and the mass culture of its time, her vision is more intimate in its subversive intent.