ANASTASIA SAMOYLOVA | FLORIDAS 

Anastasia Samoylova traverses Florida on intensive, wandering road trips from the Keys to the borders with Alabama and Georgia. She creates acutely observed photographs that distill our contradictions and confusions, looking for unexpected resonances in familiar motifs. The images are visually striking but complex, with subtle references both to Florida’s conflicted history and to the way it has been imaged so intensively by others. Her wide-ranging project Floridas takes its inspiration from 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 the culture and social values. For Samoylova, photography is a uniquely placed to communicate with a braod audience, opening up questions in accessible ways beyond the usual audiences for art. Her images have multiple entry points to their layered meanings, making them accessible to viewers from diverse backgrounds with different perspectives and expectations.