Test mode — payments are pretend and no money can be taken. Not for customers.

Gary Nicholls Imaginarium

← The Collection

A woman in crimson and black carrying a Victorian birdcage holding a miniature circus

Caged

Fine art metal print

The Imaginarium Trilogy · Surreal Art

£2,150 2020 61 × 61 cm Limited edition of 7

  • Printed on ChromaLuxe aluminium
  • Signed, numbered and certificated by the artist
  • Made to order — allow about two weeks, plus delivery
  • Shipped insured — £20 UK, £50 worldwide
  • Payment handled securely by SumUp — card details never touch this site
  • Fourteen days to change your mind, from the day it arrives
  • Buying more than one? Ask first — one parcel, one delivery charge

WOW, what on earth is going on in that head of yours? Complex is an understatement. Such imagery, stunning props and a fabulous story. Surely this has to be a film?

Mark G., on The Imaginarium Trilogy · more

Not sure yet? Ask me about this piece — how it will sit in your room, whether the size can be changed, delivery somewhere unusual, or paying in instalments.

Ask about Caged

Comes straight to me, and I answer it myself.

This piece is from Book Two of The Imaginarium Trilogy — a steampunk story told in over 450 original photographic composites. See the rest of the set.

About this work

She walks as though the street itself were a stage, carrying beneath her hand a tiny world of spectacle and illusion.

Within the Victorian birdcage, a miniature circus waits — not as captives, but as performers, companions and co-creators of a travelling music hall dream. The cage becomes both theatre and symbol: a delicate architecture of containment that holds not imprisonment, but imagination in suspension.

Dressed in crimson and black, she moves between performance and reality, elegance and artifice, bearing with her a whole secret company ready to be summoned into life.

From The Imaginarium Trilogy, Caged explores the tension between freedom and enclosure, asking whether what is held inside is ever truly trapped — or simply waiting for the right moment to perform.

Some worlds are too small to live in,

yet large enough to contain an entire act of wonder.

How it is made, and what you receive

Built, not captured
Every element is photographed separately, then layered and worked in Photoshop until the scene holds together as one image.
No AI, no stock images
Every photograph in every composite was taken by me. Nothing here is generated, and nothing is bought in from a library.
Printed on metal
The image is infused into a ChromaLuxe aluminium panel rather than laid on top of it, which is what gives these prints their depth and luminosity. Paper cannot do it.
Signed and numbered
Each print is signed, numbered within its edition, and sent with a certificate of authenticity.
Made to order
Nothing sits in a warehouse. Your print is produced when you order it, which takes about two weeks, then shipped insured.