Lu Cong

untitled  watercolor

untitled  watercolor

untitled  watercolor

untitled  watercolor

"Tabitha 11"  oil on panel  18" x 18"  2011

Lu Cong is well known for his haunting and hyper-realistic portraits of young people on the cusp of adulthood (usually girls, but not always). I've included one example here and you can see more on my previous post about his work back in July 2010. But recently he's been posting some sketches on his Flickr page. They're mostly line drawings and exhibit all the skill and and talent that is so abundantly obvious from his paintings. But scattered among them are these few watercolor studies. The loose gestural quality of the medium is a perfect counterpoint to his exquisitely controlled line work. The rough faces with their dark hollowed eyes and incomplete character lends them a quality you don't see in his very personal and empathetic portraits; for these are not portraits of individuals but sketches of animals, studies of the articulation of the limbs of naked primates. I think they're stunning. I don't know if he plans to do more of these or explore watercolor further at all, but maybe if we all bug him and say, "hey, these are awesome", he will and then we can see them and think, "dang, that guy is good" every time.
You can see more of his amazing portrait work on his website: lucong.tumblr.com
and to look all those sketches I mentioned plus other stuff go to the aforementioned Flickr Page.
Oh, and if you happen to be in New york city or Vail, CO go check out his work in person at Gallery Henoch or Vail International Gallery respectively.