Lu Cong is a contemporary American portrait artist. He is regarded by many as one of the most distinctive young artists to recently emerge from the American West. His paintings center on the faces of his carefully chosen subjects. His style pays homage to 18th Century Romantics, yet is unmistakably conceived in and relevant to the contemporary era. His portraits do not simply capture the physical and emotional state of the subject but rather they establish the complicated psychological interactions that ensue when one comes face to face with the sensual, inexplicable, and unsettling.