The Sky is White as Clay 2011

Lu Cong painted this portrait, "The Sky is White as Clay," with oils in a style that feels both classical and contemporary. The painting has a hazy, dreamlike quality, a limited palette of muted pinks and grays that create a sense of stillness. I imagine Lu Cong working meticulously, building up layers of thin glazes to achieve that soft, almost translucent skin. The gaze of the subject is direct, but there’s an ambiguity there too, a kind of quiet knowing that draws you in. What was she thinking as she sat for the painting? What thoughts or memories might the artist have been meditating on as he painted her? The landscape in the background feels like a continuation of the figure's emotional state, a subtle echo of her inner world. There’s something about the way the colors blend and bleed into each other that feels very intimate. It's as if Lu Cong is inviting us to contemplate the relationship between the inner and outer, and the way in which an artist’s work converses with the history of portraiture.