This series called is called Americana. It is a body of work I started in 2014, while visiting a friend in California. I am a French / Russian photographer and most of my childhood has been strongly influenced by Russian culture, and imagery. It was my first time visiting the United States after more than two decades of dreaming about it. Though my visual references were Russian, my interest as a teenager was turned towards the great west and American commercials and movies imposing themselves in my visual dictionary, creating an aesthetic dichotomy between East and West. At this point, I was living in France, symbolically almost right in the middle. Visa in hand I spent a couple of weeks traveling through California but it was too great of a shock, I decided to spend more time there in order to document my version of the United States. I threw away my return flight and have been there on and off since then. I’ve traveled through more than 35 states so far, sometimes taking my time, coming back, sometimes just passing by depending on how much I loved the place.

Palm Springs

This one was taken in California near Palm Springs. I was just coming back from a trip to Joshua Tree National Park.
I spent nearly an hour in this hotel courtyard taking pictures of the plants. This one stood out as my favorite. For some reason it makes me think of Japan. I don't know why, maybe the colors or the composition but every time I see it, Japan is on my mind.

Birmingham, Alabama

I shot this one in Birmingham, Alabama. The house we stayed at was really dirty but this corner of our room looked so nice, so cosy I decided to immortalize it.
It makes it look as if our stay was really cosy and cute when in fact it was quite awful and I barely slept.

Nevada

This was at the border between Nevada and Arizona. We had just left Las Vegas and we were driving really fast because we had to be in Phoenix before 3pm and we were running kind of late already. I insisted on pulling over on the highway because I was too in love with this tree.

It is an incredible experience to finally wander through these images we think we know so well, and have a look behind the curtains of the American dream. I’ve spent years watching movies in which Russia symbolises the evil, the bad, the enemy standing in the way of freedom, happiness, and glory of capitalism. Now I was finally in the core of all this and it became soon very striking what the distance can do on our conceptions. Far from the joyful american dream, especially this past year, I was witnessing great distress, open racism, extreme poverty in some places, cultural void in most states, and global misconception of the world. As if the idea of dichotomy was supposed to stick to me, I started to develop a love/hate relationship to the country. In one hand, everything was disappointing, fake, sad and quite terrifying. On the other hand, everything was entertaining, excessive, gorgeous, and fascinating.

Colorado Spring, Colorado.

We stayed two nights there and the whole experience was kind of weird. The hostess was a bit socially awkward and pretty much attached to her tv the whole time. She had two or three cats maybe and sadly the place was a bit dirty, covered in cat hair and smelling strongly like cat piss.
On the last morning I wanted to have a picture of at least one of the cats before we left as I had so far photographed every pet we'd encountered during the road trip. I ended up with this photo which until now remains one of my favorite ever.

Destination: California

We were on the way back to California after two month on the road and heading to Lake Tahoe. We were exhausted and running a bit late but we stopped on the highway to rest for a minute and snack. We were under the most beautiful fruit trees ever. Fruits were everywhere on the floor, and kept falling while we were eating. They were gorgeous but they stunk.

Lafayette, Louisiana

A very strong memory actually. We had just arrived a few hours ago and I was feeling under the weather with a little fever but we were too excited to be in Louisiana for the first time so we still got out to discover the city a little bit. We were driving randomly as we like to do in smaller towns and ended up in this area. The sun was about to set and I started to rush to get at least a few pictures before dusk. We were actually in a tiny swamp but right in the middle of the town and on the university campus. I kept wondering how wonderful it must be to live on that campus. What a gorgeous setting. How exotic. I shot a lot of pictures really fast then an alligator showed up. On the campus! The more it seemed normal for everybody the more I was loosing my mind. An alligator. On a campus. The students who walked by us barely looked at it. I was literally loosing it by being way too excited. We stared at it until it was too dark to see anything. I still think about this moment every now and then thinking, God, maybe I should apply and try to get into that university.

I am constantly amazed to see the empire such a young country was able to build. Empire that is obviously declining right now. We are witnessing loud and clear the fall of the American empire.
Through my work, and far from ubiquitous road trip stories I wanted to create, to feed, a global imagery, very abstract and far from all these concerns, almost like a series of still lives or old paintings. I concentrate on textures, colors and shapes, and have numerous elements that are coming back from one state to another. Whether it is colors, angles or subjects I try to weave a coherent visual lexicon of my United States. Trying to gather the similarities and differences from every state I am in a way trying to find familiar elements in unfamiliar places. Nature is to me the most incredible thing to experience in the USA, and this is why I rapidly decided to focus on this aspect. The natural landscape. Far from all the ephemeral, the constructed, the simulated, nature remains to oldest part of this continent, and brings back to a part of history very neglected: the native americans. Getting lost in these settings definitely gives you a glance at what this country was before the invasion and how beautiful and glorious it must have been. I have always been close to nature but clearly after these years spent in America my relationship to nature has changed a lot and it became a necessity more than a treat. Having easy access to such landscapes is truly life changing. Though my work completely steers clear of political and social issues I thought it was very interesting to travel across so many states at such a heavy time. It was incredibly interesting to go from one town to another, one state to another and discuss with very different Americans about the state their country is in. Many things became all the sudden very clear, and I found answers to many questions, though I did not like or agreed with most of the answers.

Lehi, Utah

We stayed there a couple of nights because accommodation in Salt Lake City itself was way too expensive. Everything was weird but in a wonderful way, the whole setting looked like a movie set, very quiet, very new, almost fake. We were just near the supermarket chain Harmon's and for the first time in months we were happy with what we ate. We kind of lost control inside the supermarket when we discovered they had fresh bread, truffle cheese, olive tapenade and Italian cured meats. The products were so good we came back three times a day for three days. Hands down best products I ever ate in the United States in almost four years

Phoenix, Arizona

Remember when I was talking about going to Phoenix in a rush? Well here we are, first day in Phoenix we rushed like crazy, dropped the back and headed back to the desert to shoot some cacti.
The light was so perfect everything was so gorgeous. But every lovely moment seems to have a downside to it. It was also our hottest day ever, and after one hour of shooting my camera broke down from the heat. I was very panicked but after a few days of not touching my camera to let it rest it miraculously worked again. So at the same time one of the best and the worst evening of the trip.

Cincinnati, Ohio

I shot this one in Cincinnati, Ohio on our way to Detroit. We were exhausted and stayed home for the afternoon so I photographed almost every inch of the house. Then we stayed on the front deck for a while, watching the gorgeous sky while sipping Earl Grey tea.

I like the idea of documenting this quest through really contemplative images, very immobile, using soft colors as if I was completely disconnected from the reality around me.
Between 2014-2015 I did the northern states, and between 2016-2017 the middle and southern states. I believe that at some point, I was searching for a visual unity in my images in order to replace the one I could maybe not find in the states. I was answering the question: Are the United States united? The answer obviously is yes and no. There are countless major differences between all the states, but they unite around one idea, being part of the greatest nation on earth. The American nationalism seems to have no limits. I’m really interested in that, and what gathers nations in general, what unites and divides individuals.

I feel like I worked on this project with great pressure, as if I knew that I would not have the opportunity to come back, or at least, not anytime soon. Therefore, the whole experience has been kind of tainted by the fact that I was living behind my camera, shooting as much as I could and constantly trying to capture moments, leaving little time to actually live them.