Nominated by Northern Illinois University  What does it mean to be fully connected with another human being? For two souls to intertwine until you can't feel anything else but that person's presence. The connections between my twin sister and I have sparked many personal questions and interests such as: the bond of twins, how they relate and feed off one another's energy; I am emphasizing their similarities and differences in order to get a better understanding of how their relationship functions. In the process of analyzing and researching twins, my sister has become the primary muse for my paintings. My body of work consists of large acrylic paintings that are centered on the emotions and parallels between my twin sister and I. In my work, I challenge the concept of having a twin: someone who looks like you and displays almost identical personality, yet still different enough in character to make an unexplainable impact in your life. Growing up, I have aspired to take on qualities that my sister possesses that are not apart of me, and painting her, being able to place myself into her world, or even more, allow her to have a significantly abundant presence in mine, allows me to be like her in ways I feel I am not. Although mostly acrylic, my work has an element of surprise in hints of texture created by mediums other than paint. This is a noteworthy aspect to my paintings because the fact that I do have an identical twin sister is typically not the first thing I tell people. I tend to let the fun fact reveal itself. This is the correlation between my art, creating revelation and being deeply connected to another person, my twin. Different mediums, textures and patterns that help me emphasize my emotions are my “elements of surprise” and the combinations are what allow me to execute my art successfully. Image: Only The Good, 2016