Auspicious man/Tortoise/Crane 吉祥人/龜/鶴 Yarn Sew and Mixed Media on Unstretched Canvas, 202cmx90cm, 2002. The work tried to relate Chinese traditional auspicious symbols to contemporary.

The artist Tang Ying Chi paints with gestural brushstrokes to produce images of human figures combining them with Chinese characters that ally her work to Cursive thematically. Her Auspicious Man/Tortoise/Crane 2003, appears to be crying out with struggling perhaps with the existential "why". Sitting on top of his left shoulder is an elegant crane and by his right foot is a turtle rendered in painted line. In Chinese legend the crane is the second most celebrated bird after the phoenix. Cranes symoblize longevity and are considered the bearers of the immortals but are also associated with human affairs. They are endowed with many mythical qualities including the ability to carry out the soul to the Western paradise and according to the Sou Shen Chi the human Ting Ling-wei after studying the black arts changed himself into crane. The tortoise also have the ability to transmute and are symbols of longevity.

-by Dr Thalia Vrachopoulos and Dr Shinyi Yang, co-curators at the catalogue of the exhibition entitled Cursive.