This creative manifesto is part of a series of first-person pieces by Fine Art students reflecting on the ideas informing their work. Each post will feature the artist whose work is currently rotating through the Undergraduate Fine Art Student Gallery, at the Hillside Campus. This week, Nicole Shara explores the intersection of identity and language in her new sculptural work, INFINITE (2014).

We are skewed by ego and commodity, consumed by that which is cryptic: media and language, science and truth. The idea that our role on this planet is perpetual or somehow divine is completely absurd. By taking advantage of the preexisting structure of language, I mock subjects like mortality. I repurpose words by breaking them down into two parts; they become self-cancelling creating a new awareness of the paradoxical whole. Combined with materials that physically relate to the word’s contradictory nature, a new enigma is born.

INFINITE (2014) uses this method. Each steel letter that makes up the word stands at 69 inches tall — the average height of a human being. The simultaneous strength and vulnerability of the material highlights our inability to fully comprehend the word.

As the spectator approaches, the polished sheet metal of the ‘IN’ reflects their image while the remaining letters, ‘FINITE’ stand as hollow outlines framing the gallery walls behind it. We cannot fathom infinity. We are impermanent. Upon the relocation and final installation of this sculpture in its desert home, it will rust and decay at the mercy of time. I long for humanity to accept our frivolity, understanding that we exist in just a blink of the cosmic eye.