TAMIKO NISHIMURA (b. Tokyo, Japan, 1948) graduated from Tokyo College of Photography (now Tokyo Visual Arts) in 1969. Her graduation work was a photography series of Jōkyō Gekijo (Situation Theatre), the forefront of the underground theater movement led by Jūrō Kara. After her graduation, she met Daido Moriyama, Kōji Taki and Takuma Nakahira, three highly influential members of the Provoke movement. She assisted them in the darkroom from 1969 and 1970, while she continued her personal shooting on her travels. In 1973, Nishimura made her debut through the first publication Shikishima, published by Tokyo Photography College, showcasing her photographs taken from 1969 to 1972 on her journeys around Japan including Hokkaidō, Tōhoku, Hokuriku, Kantō, Kansai and Chūgoku regions. From the 1980s the artist began to travel to Southeast Asia and Europe, expanding her subject matter.

Nishimura's major publications include Shikishima (Tokyo Photography College, 1973. Reprinted by Zen Foto Gallery in 2014), vent calmoso (Sokyu-sha, 2005), Existence 1968-69 (graficamag, 2011), Eternal Chase (graficamag, 2012), Kittenish... (Zen Foto Gallery, 2015), My Journey (Zen Foto Gallery, 2018) and Voyage (Zen Foto Gallery, 2019), My Journey II. 1968–1989 (Zen Foto Gallery, 2019), and My Journey III. 1993-2022 (Zen Foto Gallery, 2022). Her works are included in the collections of prestigious institutions, including the Baltimore Museum of Art, MD; the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY; M+, Hong Kong, China; and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY.