Shun Tang: I always start with the idea, not the medium.

Your practice moves fluidly between photography, painting, and printmaking. When an idea first arrives, how do you sense which medium it belongs to, or whether it needs more than one?

I always start with the idea, not the medium. Each form has its own strength: photography for the real, painting for symbolism, printmaking for reduction. Sometimes one is enough; sometimes combining them says it best.

You describe these disciplines as influencing one another. Can you point to a specific work where the logic of printmaking shaped how you approached a photograph, or where painting altered the way you composed an image?

Printmaking taught me to value simplification and negative space, so I bring that sense of reduction into my photography. Painting lets me think beyond the captured moment, so I allow symbolism to enter the frame instead of just documenting reality.

Cultural identity sits at the center of your work. How has living and creating in the San Francisco Bay Area shaped the way you hold and express your relationship to Chinese heritage?

Living in the Bay Area gives me distance to reflect on my cultural roots. Instead of just carrying tradition unchanged, I reinterpret it in a way that connects with my life today.

Symbolism recurs throughout your practice. How do you choose which traditional symbols to carry forward, and how do you keep them from becoming decorative rather than meaningful?

I choose symbols that connect to the idea I’m exploring, not just for their beauty. I use them as a language to talk about identity and experience, so they serve the concept rather than decorate it.

Reinterpreting traditional Chinese culture through a contemporary lens is delicate work. Where do you draw the line between honoring a tradition and reinventing it?

I respect the meaning and history behind a tradition, but don’t treat it as something fixed. I let it evolve, so it speaks to the present while still carrying its original spirit.

Each of your mediums carries its own history and weight. What does photography let you say that painting cannot, and what does printmaking offer that neither of the others can?

Photography captures reality and a moment in time, painting gives me freedom to imagine and build symbolism, and printmaking teaches me to simplify and focus on structure. Together they let me express the same idea from different angles.

Your work bridges past and present. When you sit with a centuries-old visual language, what conversation are you trying to open between it and the present moment?

I want to show that tradition isn’t only about the past, it can still speak to contemporary life. I place traditional language in a modern context to invite reflection on identity and shared challenges today.

Cultural identity is rarely fixed; it shifts with time and place. Has your own understanding of it changed across the arc of your practice, and has your work changed with it?

Yes, my understanding has grown more open. Identity feels less fixed and more like an ongoing dialogue between tradition, experience, and the world around me. My work shifts with that.

Materials and process seem central to your thinking. How much of a piece's meaning, for you, lives in the making itself rather than the final image?

For me, the process is just as important as the final work. The choices I make along the way shape the meaning. The final piece is a record of that exploration.

When you exhibit work that reinterprets tradition, how do audiences from different cultural backgrounds tend to read it, and have those readings ever surprised or reshaped you?

Audiences notice different things. Some see cultural references; others respond to the feeling or ideas. That variety teaches me that art can open real dialogue.

Looking at contemporary art today, what do you feel is still missing from the conversation around diasporic and cross-cultural artistic voices?

I hope to see more artists speaking from lived, complex cultural experiences rather than stereotypes. Cross-cultural art matters most when it creates understanding.

Where do you see your multidisciplinary practice heading next, and is there a theme or medium you haven't yet fully explored but feel drawn toward?

I hope to continue exploring themes of cultural identity, symbolism, and contemporary life through photography, painting, and printmaking. I’m also interested in developing more immersive and interdisciplinary projects that invite viewers to engage with these ideas in a more direct and personal way.

Photographer: Shun Tang @thomagrapher