Lu Cong

The mostly female sitters in Lu Cong’s hyperrealistic portraits stare directly at the viewer in a slightly unsettling, confrontational manner. Among Cong’s most familiar artworks is a portrait of writer J.K. Rowling that he was commissioned to paint for the cover of Time magazine in 1998. His portraits often include the names of the sitters, as in Study of Rebekah (2019), in which a blond-haired woman presses up against the foreground of the composition, almost invading the viewer’s personal space. The Chinese-born artist studied at the University of Iowa and originally intended to pursue a career in medicine, but enrolled at the Art Students League of Denver in 2002 instead. He has exhibited in Denver, where he is based, and more frequently with Gallery Henoch in New York.