Marika Borlase examines contemporary culture and aspirations of fame with her wry visual imagery. Using heightened colour and a complex overlay of patterns, her uber-chic figures parade amidst classical architecture. Her works mirror western society's materialistic mania providing a context reminiscent of Rocco excess.

Placing famous entertainment and sporting figures such as:Kylie, Kate Moss and Don Bradman on pedestals, Borlase freezes their iconic forms. Posed and self aware, these figures appear as though sleepwalking through a very public life and become props or aspiration mantels rather than individuals.

Borlase's colour palette is borrowed from the make-believe world of comics and interior decorating colour charts. Her colour is as radiant as it is disorientating. The flat colour areas are further embellished with added layers of airbrushed grids, pixels or patterns to give a sense of colour vibrancy and detail.

These complex environments are reinforced by a compositional pandemonium and two-dimensionality suggestive of Lichtenstein's later work. Through the layering of images from different contexts and time frames, Borlase is investigating the terrain of collective culture. These works ask questions about the meaning of being an individual in a world bombarded with images of success, from the subtly personal to the overtly commercial.