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Lu Cong


Lu Cong is a portrait artist. I'd describe his work as ethereal and unsettling. It's something in the eyes. I would also describe them as romantic and haunting. His portraits somehow seem to capture a secret or disturbing past in the eyes of the subjects. They also seem to remind me of a ghost. I also noticed that most of his work is of girls, young girls - they seem to me to be around 16 or 17 years old. When I googled images, most of the work was of the face and matched the description given above, but if you visit his personal web page, the work is very different. It's line drawings that are gestural and seem a bit more narrative in nature and there are many nude studies. Although I think his use of line is brilliant, I don't like that most of the drawings are nudes of young girls. Some seem to be at the beginning of puberty and I'm disturbed to think of him drawing girls at this age - something seems off about that to me. That aside, his work is meticulous. I really want to like him, but I can't seem to get past the nude line drawings of young girls. He was born in Shanghai, but moved to America when he was still young, 11 years old. He studied biology for his undergrad and then humanities for his graduate degree. I think you can easily see the influence of both of these lines of study in his work.


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