MFA VISUAL ART

Samuel Lo

A green, luminous sea stretches toward the horizon. In the distance, a deeply blue sky punctuated by white clouds draws the eye outward, inviting a sense of openness and boundlessness. Yet something pulls us back in. As we look more closely, a solitary human figure emerges, floating in the middle of this vast ocean. The body appears small against the immensity that surrounds it. This stark contrast—between the scale of the landscape and the vulnerability of the figure—creates a moment of suspension. The man’s gaze seems to address us directly, posing unspoken but persistent questions: Who am I? Where do I belong?

This photograph is one of many by Sam Lo, a mixed-race artist whose practice centers on “making sense of the world as a mixed-race person.” Raised in the suburbs of Maryland, with his mother’s family from southeastern Ohio and his father’s family from Guangzhou, China, and Hong Kong, Lo sees his experience of identity as highly complex. That sense of complexity is visualized through self-portraits in which his body is positioned within expansive landscapes or intimate domestic spaces, producing a quiet tension between presence and displacement.

Across his photographic work, Lo places himself in varied contexts: wearing a traditional Chinese lion dance costume, standing in a creek in Ohio, in Hawai’i, or alongside his parents in the family home. None of these images alone defines “home.” Instead, Lo suggests that home is not singular or fixed but multiple, shaped by various places and relationships. He shows that he does not belong to one world at the expense of others; rather, he exists within all of them simultaneously.

Central to Lo’s practice is the relationship between body and space. His photographs use location not merely as backdrop, but as an active element in shaping identity. The landscapes and interpersonal connections that compose his life become visual markers through which he processes the simultaneity of his origins. In doing so, Lo articulates a vision of identity grounded in wholeness rather than fragmentation, offering a model of self-acceptance that speaks powerfully to mixed-race experience while resonating far beyond it.

— Shima Karimi, OSU Department of History of Art, PhD Student

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