Yun Wang had come to Vienna to study opera singing at the conservatory, but soon turned to painting and decided to study painting at the Academy of Fine Arts, which she completed with Daniel Richter. The name of his class "Extended painterly space" was to accompany her in her further career in a significant way and almost proved to be determinative.

Her Asian roots are still clearly perceptible, especially in her earlier work, although a decisive orientation towards postmodern Western forms of expression leads to idiosyncratic transformations. Traditional Chinese ink drawing and landscape painting with their characteristic color applications, which alternate between strong rich color clouds and fine transparent nuances, on the one hand, and the ascetic art of calligraphy on the other, provide permanent stimuli that are still reflected in Yun Wang's painting today. Yun Wang also wants her works to reflect Far Eastern ideas, the idea that all living beings on earth belong together, the idea that every plant or even a stone has a soul, the ideal of a harmonious connection between man and the world, a harmony with nature (and the spirits that inhabit it). The ideal universe is often the motif and title of her work.

© Text Margareta Sandhofer
© Pics: by the artist, Portrait: Sandra Oblak