Colby Lamson-Gordon

Lives and works in New York, NY

Artist statement

I explore Chinese intercountry adoption and its enduring effects on an increasingly fragmented world. Drawing from family archives, found footage, state records, and internet aesthetics, I examine the biopolitics of displacement through the lens of nineties globalization. My practice traverses experimental portraiture, found sculpture, and expanded documentary, spanning chemically altered photographs, transformation of wood objects (like turning whiteboards into doors), and wall-scale video projections. The mouth serves as a recurring metaphor throughout my work. The Mandarin character for “return” (回 huí) contains the radical 口 (kǒu, mouth), evoking tensions between my unknown birth family, DNA-laden saliva, and loss of native Mandarin. This metaphor shapes both the structure and material of my practice: screenshots are distorted through acetone rubbings, images reanimate objects through Mod Podge transfers, and archival footage is layered onto screen recordings. Recent works trace my search for my birth family and my return to China, navigating emotional dissonance, physical distance, and the gap between the life I have lived and the one I might have lived. Portraits of people I have seen but cannot remember become measures of absence rather than intimacy. Through personal excavation alongside historical framing, I explore longing, memory, and the limits of remembering, inviting viewers to consider how identity is shaped by what remains unknown.

Artwork