My Name Is Tabitha 2010

Curator: Looking at Lu Cong's painting, "My Name Is Tabitha," painted in 2010, I'm struck by its quiet intensity. Oil on canvas, classical style but also incredibly present, you know? Editor: Present, yes, but there’s an unsettling stillness to it. It's photorealistic, bordering on hyperreal, with almost a waxen quality to the figure. It's captivating, though. Curator: Right? Her expression seems so closed off, yet her eyes invite something else in... Lu Cong is a master of that tension. What does this all mean, I wonder? Or am I reading too much into a face? Editor: Not at all! It’s there in the composition. The formality of the pose – seated, hands clasped – clashes with the softness of her hair and that floral wallpaper, creating a visual dissonance. The pattern itself becomes almost a suffocating presence. Curator: Precisely. And the white of her shirt is like a stage for us to wonder about who she is. Is it innocence, constraint... or both? The wallpaper clashes delightfully like an unwelcome memory in my head. And, yet, such tenderness and beauty are being presented... Editor: A careful study of contrasting elements, then, the calculated juxtaposition of textures. There's real tension in the layering of forms – the precise rendering of folds in the fabric versus the almost dreamlike quality of the background, where she is also clearly embedded. Curator: It does raise questions about identity, doesn’t it? About presentation, vulnerability. The flowers – stylized and almost floating – provide this whole story that never gets written on a canvas so beautifully painted as this. And then comes the title – "My Name Is Tabitha." Editor: Yes! The simple declaration of identity amidst all this visual complexity. It’s both intimate and detached. Curator: A name can be a beginning but also an ending. Who knows if Lu Cong meant that, but who knows what any of us meant by just simply stating what the other knows us by... our name? Editor: Precisely; Cong’s command over realist technique allows the subject’s inner state to both conceal and reveal, doesn't it? It gives "Tabitha" the right to be both elusive and present in an art style so classical yet... new. Curator: Thank you, it always hits hard when technique matches creativity and inspiration. It makes art like this painting really come alive. Editor: Indeed. “My Name Is Tabitha” showcases art's great capacity for contradiction—and the artist's for execution, too.