“… redeem things from their associations” Jamaica Kincaid was on Cultivating Place, a podcast (July 2020).
“Memory is a gardener’s real palette; memory as it summons up the past, memory as it shapes the present, memory as it dictates the future.”
“…carry it always
on my person, concealed, so
no one else would know but me.
That way they can’t steal it…”
Floridas, Anastasia Samoylova. 19 January – 19 March 2022. Madera, 23.
“Sunshine state. Swampland paradise. Tourist aspiration. Political swing-state. Real estate racket. Refuge of excess. Sub-tropical fever dream. The place where image and reality become inseparable. With forms of nature and culture found nowhere else, Florida is unique. It is also among the most elusive and misunderstood of places.
Samoylova’s series Floridas documents it all in a layered portrait of contemporary Florida, while establishing a dialogue with the oeuvre of Walker Evans, the American photographer who documented the state between the 1930s and the 1970s. Like Evans, Samoylova moves between color and black and white, looking closely at the telling details in landscapes, cityscapes, people, objects and interiors that speak volumes about culture and social values. With her vivid bright images and sharp juxtapositions, Anastasia Samoylova offers a test for endurance to the iconic American narratives of the American Dream.
Floridas seems to exist on the thin border between observational documentary photography and a crafted photo-collage. It is the way the artist frames the shot of her subject of choice, in combination with her loaded depiction of color, that creates a slightly surreal atmosphere — none of which is staged. Posters, storefronts, signs, and utilitarian objects are meticulously observed as silent reminders of the character of American culture as a whole.
Press release, Sabrina Amrani Gallery.
