![Lu Cong - Study of Victoria [2008]](http://farm2.staticflickr.com/1641/24610283591_98ae70ffd9_o.png)
Lu Cong is a contemporary American portrait artist. He was born in Shanghai, in February 1978. He is regarded by many as one of the most distinctive young artists to recently emerge from the American West. Lu Cong paintings centre around the faces of his carefully chosen subjects. His style pays homage to 18th Century Romantics, yet it is unmistakably conceived in and relevant to the contemporary era. His portraits do not simply capture the physical and emotional state of the subject, rather they beckon to establish the complicated psychological interactions that ensue when one comes face to face with the sensual, the inexplicable, and the unsettling.
See: lucong.tumblr.com/
[Gallery 1261, Denver - Oil painting, 61 × 61 cm]