Autumn 2019 

Lu Cong painted ‘Autumn 2019’ as an intimate oil portrait. The subject, a blond woman in a red patterned dress, raises her hand as though warding off the sun against a backdrop of densely packed urban architecture. Cong’s portraits often feature women in ambiguous, dreamlike settings, blending a hyperrealist technique with surreal qualities. There is a tension between the woman’s classical European features and the artist’s own cultural background. The woman is depicted with a level of detail that evokes both vulnerability and strength, her gaze soft yet self-assured. The painting exists between worlds, and speaks to the complexities of identity in an increasingly globalized world. In a place that is both alienating and quietly serene, the woman appears suspended, an individual reckoning with the vastness and indifference of contemporary urban existence.