Makena #9 2013

Curator: We're looking at "Makena #9," an acrylic on canvas portrait created in 2013 by Lu Cong. Editor: It has this eerie, disconnected feel. She seems so…present, yet the backdrop suggests a vast, impersonal space. Like a doll lost in the city. Curator: The acrylic certainly allows for that incredible smoothness of skin tone. You notice how flawlessly he’s blended those subtle blush tones? There’s a palpable skill in recreating the real here, almost hyperreal. But the scene… Editor: Exactly. The bright blue of her simple polka-dot sweater becomes this strangely defiant act, amidst all that drab urban sprawl. Those buildings looming – are they prison walls or just aspirations? I’m thinking about how garments like hers are produced, the often-invisible hands involved in global supply chains... Curator: Ah, so the garment whispers a larger socio-economic tale? I see your point. Though for me, it is also how delicate that floral circlet feels. So transient compared to those stone giants. It is beautiful, this supposed "realism" painting. Perhaps her world is in the making? It speaks to a quiet but persistent resilience. A modern Botticelli nymph dropped into the harsh light of contemporary life, no? Editor: The use of mass-produced acrylic, though – readily available and globally distributed – contrasts with those almost Pre-Raphaelite details you highlight. Are we elevating consumerism or critiquing it? The flowers themselves seem almost manufactured, perfect...unreal in their own way. Curator: Perhaps it’s a bit of both. Lu Cong holds up a mirror – but not just to a person, also to the complex textures of our manufactured world. "Makena #9", like her namesake, hints at mysteries just out of reach. Editor: Leaving us to wonder who made the dress, who tends those small flower copies in her hair, and who inhabits all those empty window spaces above.