The City by Lori Nix

In her latest series, “The City,” Lori Nix fabricates environments based off elements found in a city that has eroded with time. The viewer may mistake these scenes as reality until they realize that what they’re seeing is slightly too amazing to be true. Nix’s attention to detail is provocative and obsessive. In “Museum of Art,” a colony of bees has reclaimed the museum as their hive haven. Amongst the framed paintings, an encased Gothic Virgin and Child, and statue resembling Michael Angelo’s David, golden honey drips from a beehive perched in a barrel vault. Flowers and vines, emerging from cracks in the floor, are seen climbing up podiums and Corinthian columns, while bees fly under spacious domed ceilings.
Lori meticulously creates intricate miniature dioramas by hand with basic materials such as plaster, cardboard, Styrofoam, mixed with the occasional fur, plants, cat whiskers and found objects. She builds all scenes, which take from 4 months to a year or two, for a single photograph that is taken from one preconceived angle. The 8×10 camera is used to capture the surreal scene on film where the illusion comes to life. Nix then dismantles the process and begins a new.