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.

Aris Moore

 

Aris Moore's drawings are a bit like collage and it's no surprise to discover that she does a lot of that as well. Her endless fascination is the face. Each piece is a portrait, although not in the proper sense. These are not real people. They are invented. They are cobbled together from disparate elements; a mouth, eyes, etc.,. The disjointed and disconnected nature of their features lends them a curious vulnerability, and a peculiar kind of life. It's as if they desperately wanted to be real, like Pinocchio. Sometimes the amalgamation of features can take on a shocking aspect, akin to characters in a freak show, which we are drawn toward out of morbid fascination. But even then there is deep sympathy in the portrayal. In Aris Moore's work, that line between real and unreal is a vast twilight zone in which she creates an endless cast of characters that all seem to have their own stories to tell, as rich and complex, as sad and sorrowful, or as full of joy and simple pleasures, as any of our own.

Sometimes the artist will experiment with simple variations. For example, take a head of hair and toss in  the facial features in various combinations and styles and see what happens. Somehow each one begins to speak. Here's a terriffic example below. And this is just the tip of an iceberg. Go visit her blog and just spend some time scrolling back in time through her enormous body of work at peekadoo.blogspot.com

And congratulations to the artist for being included in the latest edition of New American Paintings.

Jeremy Lipking

Jeremy Lipking is an unabashed erotic romantic painter. He's one of those deft realists who paint as if the 20th century never happened. Invariably such artists paint pretty much the same subject matter; bucolic landscapes, portraits, gardens, children. Frankly it gets a bit tiresome, but sometimes they're just so damn good at it you have to whistle softly between your teeth and admit that, okay, it's damn good.
In general I have avoided posting erotic work because I don't particularly want to offend anyone and usually I find that the eroticism one usually sees in painting actually detracts from the work as mere attention seeking gimmickry. But I've changed my mind this once, although I did place them at the bottom. So go ahead, scroll down if you want to see some really really beautiful naked women. And oh yeah, these water falls are pretty amazing too.
There's more of course on his website: www.lipking.com

Note: most of these paintings are not titled or in any other way described on his website

Waiting 20 x 16 inches

Takashi Saito

Takashi Saito loves faces. There are over 2000 images on his Flickr page and almost all of them are of faces. He paints and draws them in a wide range of approaches from deft realism, to all manner of stylized distortions. Many of his faces are more design than portrait, and yet something of the model always seems to come through. One of his favorite tricks is render certain parts of the face in sharp clarity, usually something innocuous like an ear or nose or the neckline of the shirt, and then allow the rest of the face to disintegrate into a soft focus blur. He often allows the eyes to almost disappear, drawing us away from what is our natural focus and forcing us to look at the face in a very new way.
You can see some of his work on his website (www.saitotakashi.com) but the aforementioned Flickr page is the place to go. Start with this set of his own favorite pieces.
And according to his profile page he's looking for photographs to work from, so post your mug on Flickr and send him the link. You may never see your own face in quite the same way again.

PS it's well worth clicking on these images to view them larger!






















2007 July Oil on canvas mounted on board 29.7 × 21.0cm






















2010 Acrylic on panel 41.0 x 27.3 cm














































2010 Acrylic on paper 29.6 x 21.0 cm













































2009 Gouache on paper 29.6 x 20.8 cm























Acrylic on paper 29.7 x 21.0 cm

Lu Cong

Lu Cong is an artist who has honed in on a single subject which he explores over and over again. His subject is young women, or girls, depending on your point of view. They are on the cusp of adulthood infusing many of the portraits with an awkward sexuality. But it is the honesty of their expressive faces that is the triumph of these paintings. Often painted larger than life, the characters gaze out from the flat surface of the paintings with uncanny candor, expressions of confidence and doubt and candid curiosity layered together with all the emotional complexity that comes with the transformation from child to adult.
See more at his website www.lucong.com and on his flickr page























"Ms. Kimberly" Oil on panel, 30" by 30", 2009


















"Study of Kelsie", Oil on panel, 16" x 20", 2008























"Tabitha" Oil on panel, 24" x 24", 2009























"The Duet" Oil on panel, 30" x 30", 2010























"The Girl Who Finds You Here" Oil on panel, 36" by 36"

Aaron Smith

Aaron Smith is fascinated with art history. Or maybe he's just fascinated by all the strange gewgaws and memorabilia that litter the walls and glass cases of out local art museums. Whatever the reason, it is these objects, primarily sculpted pieces, that form the main subject of his paintings. His choices are eclectic, from from east and west, religious and secular, ornate and modest, but all from a distant enough past to contrast markedly with his interpretive approach. His paintings are large, aggressive and expressionistic. A wild array of colors are mixed and mangled together, sometimes just to render the neutral gray of clay or stone. The brushwork is frenetic and, like a good jazz musician in the midst of a furious solo, always right on the edge of failure. Not failing is the key to it's visceral appeal, and a broken note here or there can sometimes touch deeper than perfect pitch.
Some earlier portrait work from a few years back provide a nice back story to the newer works, showing where all this frenzied brushwork came from; a confident but more careful exploration of light on skin. See more at his website: aaronsmithart.com























"Chippy" 28" x 28" oil on panel 2008























"Parade" 48" x 36" oil on panel 2008























"Muck Snipe" 37" x 27.5" oil on panel 2009
(a muck snipe, by the way, is old victorian slang for someone down and out, usually from gambling losses - I had to look it up)






















"Smasher" 48" x 47" oil on panel 2006






















"Tracer 48" x 30" oil on panel 2006

Elia Mauceri

There is no information about the artist on his Flickr site. Most of the paintings are untitled. On his profile page under hometown he has written Fanculo, which is italian for "Fuck off". Under profession: fancazzista. You get the idea. So.... I figure he's probably from Italy. The only other thing that I know is that his aggressive mixed media portraits are raw, immediate, and at their best, disturbingly powerful. He has only been posting since December 2008 but his work has evolved dramatically in barely over a year. It's an interesting and rather exciting progression. It would be nice to have a little more information on many of the pieces, sizes and materials, but regardless I'll be looking forward to seeing where he takes all this in the future.






















"Daria" (March 2010)























untitled (February 2010)























untitled (February 2010)























olio su tela 100 x 100 cm (December 2009)
















Figure 3 80 x 90cm (January 2009)

Tamara Muller

Tamara Muller's faces are almost always her own. They are stylized but rendered with an uncanny realism. Other parts of the canvas may be blocked in with simple brushwork or even left unfinished, because it is those faces that matter. They are not self portraits in the basic sense. Each one is a role although the role itself is sometimes vague, flickering between man, animal, woman, child, seducer, victim, sometimes combinations of two or more. There is a tension in them, between the presumed innocence of youth and the transgressive desires and guilt of adulthood. This disturbing psychological dichotomy is carefully balanced by a visual sense sense of wit and humor.
Many of her paintings remind me of the work of the American artist Alice Neel, whose deceptively simple technique was capable of capturing intense psychological portraits. The comparison is limited at best. Alice Neel painted other people. Tamara Muller's work is an unfolding and unflinching portrait of the self. And the accumulating body of that work is continually adding weight to its depth.
There are plenty of paintings to look at on her website: www.tamaramuller.nl























"Deleted Scenes 2" 100x100cm 2008























"Chapter 2" 150x120cm 2007






















50x50cm oil on canvas 2005


















50x60cm oil on canvas 2005

















"Beast (birds)" 100x120cm oil on canvas 2005






















"Beasts" 150x150cm oil on canvas 2005