By dr. Tomaž Trpič : Whether art is the purest form of culture is a question that could be categorized as the subject of a redundant academic discussion. However, it would be hard to doubt that the art represented by the work of the photographer Tomaž Lunder and the painter Huiqin Wang is steeped in culture. The work is not just the sum of the two cultural backgrounds that the respective artists belong to; what we find here is a tight interlacing of the two. On one side is Slovene culture, on the other Chinese. This is a generalization as anyone who has some knowledge of culture, be it Slovene, Chinese, or some other, will be aware of the impossibility of talking of even such a small geographical region as Slovenia, let alone when dealing with what is undoubtedly the worlds most populous cultural realm, China. Fortunately individuals are the only protagonists of culture. This is of considerable help when we try to analyze the artistic expression of the artists in tandem, Tomaž Lunder – Huiqin Wang.
What we find here is a synthesis of two personal cultures regardless of their personal histories, captured not only within their specific local environment but also in global cultural undercurrents, These are not mere words. The artists’ work would be impossible, or at least impossible to accomplish in such a seamless fashion, if it were not for their mutual cultural background.
We may ask ourselves how such a cultural synthesis in art can exist at all. What we might expect from these conjoined pieces of art is a collage of two different artistic expressions. But that is not the case, as the two authors transfuse their art into one another in a frictionless manner and at the same time stay faithful to the specificity of their insubordinate expression. Lunder remains faithful to photography, the marvelous invention of the modern era, while Huiqin Wang represents the traditional painting technique of using a brush to add paint to canvas. What makes the synthesis of their work possible is the use of (post)modern computer technology. We could say that the computer personifies cultural globalization, which the two artists manage to overcome, that is to say, translate into a personal aesthetic expression. Paradoxically, it is the use of the (post)modern computer technology that enables this to take place.
What powers it is the traditional honest dialectic, which never leaves us stranded. As always in good art the contrasts on the level of artistic expression are not really apparent. If they must appear then it is at the level of narrative that a piece of art transmits to the viewer. On one side we have dinosaurs and shrines, on the other a modern urban environment. On a visual level they both represent the inability of the two cultures to overpower one another, which can only result in their synthesis.