Abstract watercolor painting with constellation map, featuring stars, lines connecting stars, and handwritten notes in Japanese.
Abstract watercolor painting with pastel shades of purple, pink, blue, and green, accented with white and gold dots and lines, featuring handwritten text and star-like symbols.
Abstract watercolor painting with shades of purple, pink, green, and white, accented with gold streaks and black handwritten symbols and writing scattered throughout.

Liminal art and unfinished alchemy

Imagining other worlds through visual art, poetry, and prose

Abstract watercolor painting with pastel shades of purple, blue, green, and pink, accented with white and gold splashes. Contains scattered black handwritten words and symbols, small white stars and dots, creating a cosmic or dreamy effect.
Look at some art!

Join the CULT SOLSTICE CIRCLE

This is for you…

  • Silly, sparkly, and whimsical wanderers

  • Magical little freaks

  • And the ferociously soft

A traditional Japanese ink wash painting depicting a landscape scene with mountains, trees, and flowing water, with a bright full moon in the sky and Japanese calligraphy scattered throughout.

Dear Friend,

Hello! And welcome to my digital art studio/cave/ nook/magic treehouse/idk this is a weird, liminal, ever-shifting space where time isn’t real and logical thinking is optional and the currency is sparkles. An inter-dimensional haven for wanderers; a strange little corner of the internet void wedged in the cosmos. A weird, wonderful world contained in a liminal tavern, contained in a treehouse floating in space.

(At least, that’s what I’d like it to be. It is a still a work in progress.)

A dark-haired person and a grey and white cat lying close together on a couch.
A dark-haired person lying on a green couch with a grey and white cat, both relaxing with her eyes closed.

The Artist/Tavern Keeper

I’m Nico Sakaki.—you can call me Nico. It means “victory of the people,” which I find really cool.

I’m a non-binary multidisciplinary artist and my pronouns are they/them. My main mediums are writing and visual art. I love using painting, poetry, and prose to explore the liminal and the unseen.

Here are some other words that describe me:

Writer. Poet. Painter. Queer. Trans. Storyteller. Art fairy. Shy and bi. Socially anxious. Generally anxiety and confused. Depressed a lot of the time. Possibly neurospicy but still struggling with feeling like I have the right to self-diagnose myself. Spiritual freak. Airy and watery. Chronic daydreamer. I feel very strongly that I was a willow tree in a previous life.

I’m happy you’re here! Maybe someone sent you a link to this page, or you stumbled upon it during a three am Google session. I suppose it doesn’t really matter. The internet is a freakishly infinite, sometimes wonderful, sometimes horrible universe we’ve created for ourselves, and I wanted to create a space that might make it just a little less horrible.

One thing I’ve learned about choosing to exist in the digital sphere is that while no replacement, it can be a practice in learning to take up space. Learning what it means to exist without apologizing for asking to be witnessed, to be seen trying, to be seen as too earnest, too cringe, too childlike. There is no thing such as too much or not enough here.

So come in, if you’d like. And don’t worry about breaking anything.

Choose your own adventure

Bio A: I am a professional artist and a fully functioning adult human
Bio B: My art story in painstaking detail

Or, read on for a better sense of the vibes and pretty pictures of kittens and space.

Digital artwork of a person with short dark hair holding a grey and white cat against a purple background with abstract lines radiating outward.
A person holding a grey and white cat in front of a wooden bookshelf filled with books and decorative items.

Art by Torin Audoire

Abstract watercolor painting with black, brown, green, and gold brushstrokes, white stars, dots, and splashes on a textured background.
Abstract watercolor painting with black, pink, green, white, and gold splashes and streaks.
Abstract painting with dark green, black, white, and beige colors, featuring swirling lines and star-like shapes.

What I'm Dreaming Of...

A person and a cat cuddling on a bed with a smartphone nearby.

I dream of birds. I dream of befriending a murder of crows and exchanging trinkets on a regular basis.

I dream of liminal spaces that hold time differently and hold pockets of magic. Portals to the unseen and the unknown. Worlds that I can’t even imagine clearly but know the feeling of.

I dream of fairy goats tap dancing on the roof.

I dream of a world where you know your basic needs will be met, regardless of your circumstances or (dis)abilities. Where you know you will always be taken care of.

I dream of softness and honey, of a love so big it threatens to engulf you.

I dream of a world without billionaires.

I dream of a world with less cars and more robust public transportation.

I dream of whimsical little worlds with fairies and dragons and sword lesbians and sentient clouds.

I dream that I was a willow tree in a past life.

A person lying on a grey couch, sleeping next to a grey and white cat partially covered with a holiday-themed blanket, with in the background yarn and a water bottle on a white table.
A grey and white cat lying on its back on a green couch, sleeping with its paws curled.
Long exposure photograph of the night sky capturing star trails radiating outward from the center.

I dream of knowing that I’m not alone, as much as I feel it sometimes

I dream of a world where queers run wild and gender is optional and beautiful and sex work is treated as work and all forms of love are prioritized.

I dream of rescuing and nursing back to health a baby fox, then returning the fox to her mother, and seeing them scamper back into the forest, and for one brief moment, locking eyes with the mama fox from the kitchen window.

I dream of a society of broken down and rebuilt systems of equity and radical compassion and respect for ourselves and the world that we are just a part of.

I dream of a world where all learning styles are normalized. Where teaching is sacred and creativity is recognized for what it is—fundamental to our humanity.

I dream of a world where we know how much we need each other.

I dream of what it would take to make any of these dreams real.

Maybe I start…

… by continuing to make art. Continuing to be soft and silly and confused.

… by trying to do what I do best—help people imagine other worlds, express the abstract, give voice to the unnameable.

… with imagining an inter-dimensional liminal tavern located nowhere in particular in some pocket of the cosmos. Meant for lost travellers, all on their own odyssey through one universe or another. It glows soft and has a round hobbit-style door and all sorts of nooks and crannies and doors to different rooms. A never-ending giant cauldron of soup. Shelves and shelves of teas and herbs and elixirs.

Portals

Ways to Connect

Read

Read my bi-monthly(ish) newsletter, Unfinished Alchemy.

Learn more

Join the Solstice Circle, an analog art and poetry subscription, and get some delightful mail each season!

Learn more

Commission a soulscape

Email

Email me with any questions, purchase inquiries, dark secrets, or just to tell me that I’m doing a good job.

Social media is evil but my instagram is: nico_sakaki

Thank you for being here.

May you unlock the little box in your mind that holds all your shiniest trinkets.

May you keep dreaming of a better world.

May you be fuelled by rage and whimsy and a love that burns brighter than despair.

“… I have nature and art and poetry, and if that isn’t enough, what is?”

Vincent Van Gogh