Images from the body of work I presented:

Artist Statement:

I’m Tanis Nikana, and this is my project Matsuri Machi, a still life involving building blocks in conjunction with traditional Japanese gaming bits to create a little fantasy village, set atop my dining table! It’s got themes of an idealized fantasy lifestyle, friendship, those bustling utopias folks long for sometimes, and queer love, informed a bit by Hayao Miyazaki, Katamari Damacy, with some of the busy-ness of Andreas Gursky, always something new to see in the margins. What you’re looking at is the fourth time I’ve shot this–I’ve always been a bit unhappy with any given iteration, wishing I could do things better, and the next time I shoot it, things are better! There might be a fifth. This iteration was originally shot as homework for a community college photography class.

So taken at a glance, are a bunch of low camera angles to encourage this idea of being present there in the village, but sometimes I shot a bit higher just to capture some of the detail of the scene. I tried to capture a whole range of times of day, from broad daylight to the evening, and I worked a whole bunch of little spottable bits in, like the shogi pieces having a secret battle among the rooftops, careful placement of hanafuda to reflect some of the environments they’re in, and more.

Thanks for seeing my work!

Pricing and Prints:

These can be printed however you’d like, but I personally enjoy them at 24"x36". Not too big it’s hard to move them, but big enough to get lost in the details without straining. I would price them around $1k/image at that scale.

In my house are two framed 24”x36”es (“Main Marketplace in Spring” and “Friends on the Thirteen Orphans Wall in the Alleyway”), and twenty other 8”x12”s, which I would have printed as big as the first two, had I the cash. Having these pictures being so enlarged helps to reduce the size of the human viewing them gets them into the moment, makes the place feel alive.

However, I’ve never sold work before, and this is just me trying to put together an informed price on this. I could be off. I’m not a professional. Thank you for considering me.

no one can stop you. just get on your bike and join in.

Sorry to hear you didn’t get into this one. Don’t lose confidence over it though - it just means one selector from one exhibition one year didn’t pick them.

These are still really strong works amd definitely worth exhibiting.

You should be sending them off to as many open call exhibitions as your self-esteem and bank balance will allow.

Keep an eye out especially for any exhibitions opportunities with themes or subgenres which this work matches - if there was an exhibition looking at toys, imaginary worlds, miniature worlds, Japanese culture etc, you’d have far better odds than a fully “open” exhibition, where there’s landscape, portrait and nature photography as well - and the selectors may only like a particular genre.

These are definitely good enough to exhibit publicly.