Nadia Lee Cohen’s Holy Ohio scrapes the gloss off her style and embraces the rust of rural America

Nadia Lee Cohen is one of the most sought after photographers and directors in the world. She’s worked with everyone from Tyler, The Creator to Billie Jean King, channelled Cindy Sherman in her book Hello My Name Is, and has created character driven, surreal music videos with The Garden, A$AP Rocky and Adult Swim and more. Now, in her new photobook Holy Ohio (published by WePresent, the arts platform of WeTransfer, and distributed by Idea Books), the British photographer reconnects with her extended family in Ohio, a place she calls her first introduction (back in 1999) to anything “overtly American outside of the television”. Although born and raised, on an “isolated farm” in the countryside of Essex, England, Nadia’s style over time has become her own recognisable visual vernacular, blending American iconography with the dream-like.

In typical fashion, Nadia’s photos are supremely designed. Focusing on the unique charm of American interiors and utilising deep focus – where the foreground, middle ground and background are in all focus – Nadia replicates the cheap look of disposable film cameras to match her own “fragmented memories, bound by the stillness of time”. Far from the typical British childhood, Nadia spins a narrative thread that connects both of the Western nations. “While Holy Ohio is one of Nadia’s most personal works to date, it’s also an unflinching, raw and idiosyncratic portrait of family that we can all relate to,” says Holly Fraser, editor-in-chief of WePresent.

Where some photos show familiar dusty green carpets and smoke stained curtains, the next presents another type of common American interior – a room stacked with rifles. Nadia’s confronting approach is no better represented than through weaponry; one standout image shows a handsome knife decorated with an American flag grip – cultural history and the implication of violence all in one.

Blending the mundane with the quiet tension of American life, Nadia reinvents her own childhood through character study and a Hollywood movie lens. “I remember the smell of bacon, coffee, or pizza depending on the time of day. Kids would be running around squealing,” says Nadia. “The house was very much alive – there was a coziness to the chaos, and I was at the age where I found any kind of dispute or dysfunctionality exciting.” Nadia’s signature self-inserts feature alongside these carefully imagined scenes, transforming herself into a character that looks like a famous model who got lost in The Buckeye State.

Designed to physically resemble a Bible, Holy Ohio observes the intricacies of America’s rural heartland as well as the quiet temperance of Christian theology that connects the nation. In one image, a sign reads ‘waterbeds ‘n’ stuff’, speaking to the simple kitsch of rural consumer imagery, whilst in another, two men look into the distance whilst a giant dinosaur looms in the background, referencing America as something prehistoric, frozen in time or stuck in the past. Frequently showing photographs of the elderly, with dentures laid on tables and rooms that look like they’ve been preserved at the edge of century, Nadia’s bombastic and glossy style is scraped off here, revealing the true rust of memory and heritage.