Nominated by Northwestern University My work aims to be widely accessible. The fine arts have long been an exclusive privilege of the elite. My work aims to break these socio-economic prejudices and return art to its purpose (if such exists) to dialog with the rest of humanity in a reflective pondering of life. To this aim, I take two approaches. My first approach is to emulate and exaggerate a few of the elements that unite the human race—namely, time, space, and biology. Much of my work toys with the mundane simplicity and simultaneous philosophical complexity of time. Using a variety of media with current technological advances, I endeavor to both comprehend and apprehend the defined physicality of our bodies in relation to the ambiguous, infinite space to be occupied by our thoughts. Biology is another unifying component of the human experience. Exploiting the physiological limitations of our eyes and our brain’s occipital lobe, I try to create work to which the effect is the same for everyone, an equalizing universality.My second approach is to make work that questions the definition of art. Related investigations would be into the validity and exclusivity of the art world and its boundaries in light of recent works of conceptual art. Why is work still considered visual art if to understand its motivating concept, and thus the piece itself, requires reading a thousand-word wall label? In challenging the institution of art, or the artworld, I aim to broaden its boundaries. To accomplish aforementioned goals, I employ whatever media reaches the broadest population or most pointedly communicates the work’s idea. Image: Marks Accumulated Over Time, 2014.