iPreciation is delighted to present Beyond Adversity: Irene Chou’s Small Works in her Later Years. The exhibition’s theme is inspired by Chou’s unwavering vitality and resilience, putting a spotlight on her ability to confront and transcend the many personal challenges she faced throughout her life. Slowly recovering from her immense anguish through the healing practice of painting, colours finally made its return in Chou’s works in the 1980s. Unfortunately, Chou suffered a severe stroke in 1991, which temporarily halted her artistic practice. Nevertheless, rather than feeling defeated, she became a proactive patient who maintained a healthy lifestyle and was resolved to regain her mobility and eventually return to painting. Chou persevered through rehabilitation and was moved to Brisbane, Australia, where she continued to create works from 1993. These works possessed an otherworldly quality, exploring themes of the universe and celebrating the rebirth of a new self that was imbued with a profound gratitude for life. The motif of an embryo or fetus often appeared in her works, acting as universal symbols of rebirth and spiritual transformation. Suffering from cerebellar atrophy which greatly restricted her mobility, Chou still determinately tried her best to stand whilst splashing bold ink strokes to create larger artworks, she would even crawl around the large paintings and painted around the edges of the individual paintings to attend to finer details.

In the early 2000s, the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) commissioned Chou’s works for Kuala Lumpur and Brisbane projects. JTC Biopolis likewise commissioned five works of Chou under their permanent collection. 

Considering the enormous uncertainties and health challenges she faced in all aspects of her life at the time, it would have been much safer for Chou to continue to paint on a familiar medium. Instead, she chose to take a great risk on her career by experimenting with new mediums, using acrylic paint, canvas, silk, satin and boards, among many others. Her exploration stemmed from her great desire to learn and this also helped restore her emotional balance. At the same time, Chou revisited and synthesised many of her signature techniques, bringing them together in her late paper works. Initially an admirer of Chou’s works, Zhu Qi, a Chinese art historian criticised: “You are now bringing out every single sign and symbol you have developed over the years into your present work. It is too much”. Yet, it is precisely this abundance that embodies Chou’s vitality and rush of emotions. Among these recurring techniques and motifs are circles, which represent the circle of love, and her queyue cun (a vortex-like pattern), rendered by colourful short strokes and layering was named as such by Chou to express the motif’s representation of a “joyful mind”. British art historian and professor Michael Sullivan, who first met Chou and encountered her works on a visit to Hong Kong in the late 1960s, likewise describes Chou as embodying a “serenely cheerful attitude to life” where her ideas and feelings become “so charged with the vitality and joy of her own character that they spring to life”. 

Chou relocated to a nursing home in 2007 till her passing in 2011. During those years, she painted smaller works due to space constraints and her physical deterioration. In spite of such restrictions, these works still remarkably displayed Chou’s signature techniques and her renewed vitality, resilience, spiritual reflection, and a strong will to continue creating — the bright colours endured, the motif of circles and embryos, and the red aspects against the striking bold black strokes. Moreover, Chou persisted in her use of mixed media, creating playful works with overlapping and impasto layers. Despite all the adversity Chou faced, her groundbreaking series Life is a Many Splendoured Thing reveals a soul that remained deeply grateful and appreciative of life. 

Irene Chou’s Early Influences: 

Irene Chou (b. 1924, Shanghai, China – d. 2011, Brisbane, Australia) is widely regarded as one of the most influential exponents of the New Ink Painting movement in Hong Kong during the 1960s and 1970s. She completed a modern education at the renowned St. John’s University in 1945 before working as a journalist for Peace Daily Shanghai. That was where she met her husband, Evan Yang (also known as Yi Wen), a renowned Hong Kong director. Relocating to Hong Kong in 1949 due to political upheaval in post-war China, Chou encountered many influential figures and overcame countless personal challenges that have recognizably shaped her artistic journey. 

Chou’s work began to mature in style in the 1960s under the tutelage of Lui Shou-Kwan (b. 1919 – d. 1975), the leader of the New Ink Painting movement. Lui inspired her to delve deeper into self-expression and striking ink styles. He also introduced Chou to philosophical concepts drawn from Daoism and Zen Buddhism, which became central to Chou’s practice. 

When her beloved mentor, Lui Shou-Kwan, passed away in 1975, followed by that of her husband’s in 1978, it was a huge blow to Chou. Swamped with grief, she channeled this overwhelming sorrow into her mid-1970s paintings. Chou later developed one of her most known “piled ink” technique. She termed these paintings layered with slabs of black ink as the “dark paintings” where darkness became her loudest silent cry and bleak lines traced her agony. These paintings were characterized by the profuse and concentrated use of ink, with gradual gradation that occupied four fifths of the painting. 

However, Chou concurrently established a contrasting technique she termed “impact”. The broad sweeps of black ink, yet with a significant amount of blank spaces to diffuse a bit of light-heartedness. This was derived from the “splashed ink” technique of Chinese ink combined with Zen and philosophical theories. Her new style of “[hitting] the ink on the watery paper surface forcefully”, also known as the “impact” technique, quickly evolved into “impact structure strokes”. These were distinguished by bold, dynamic strokes of ink that radiated strength and passion. 

Venue
50 Cuscaden Road, HPL House #01-01, Singapore 249724 

Artist
Irene Chou

Exhibition Dates
Private Preview: 25 July 2026, 2 – 5PM 
Exhibition Opens to Public: 27 July – 15 August 2026 

Gallery Hours
Monday – Friday | 9 AM – 6 PM
Saturday | 11 AM – 6 PM

Website
www.ipreciation.com 

Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/ipreciation

Contact
enquiry@ipreciation.com

About the Artist: 

Irene Chou (b. 1924, Shanghai, China) was widely regarded as one of the most influential exponents of the New Ink Painting movement in Hong Kong. In 1945, Chou graduated from the renowned St. John’s University, Shanghai, with a BA in Economics. Despite her academic training in a field far removed from the arts, she later emerged as a pioneering Hong Kong ink painter during the 1960s and 1970s. Chou is celebrated for her exploration of spirituality and the cosmos which are evoked by her dynamic compositions, vibrant explosions of ink, colour, and movement. Her works often incorporated philosophical ideas from Zen Buddhism and Taoism. 

Chou’s works have received prestigious awards such as the Hong Kong Artists’ Guild Painter of the Year Award in 1988. She is under the permanent collections at esteemed institutions worldwide, including Museum Fine Art Award, Ashmolean Museum (University of Oxford, UK), Boston Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, USA), British Museum (London, UK), Chinese University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong), City Gallery (Manila, Philippines), Hong Kong Museum of Art (Hong Kong), Hong Kong Land (Hong Kong), The Khoan and Michael Sullivan Collection, M. K. Lau Collection (Hong Kong), M+ Museum (Hong Kong), National Art Gallery (Manila, Philippines), National Museum of History (Taipei, Taiwan), National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (Taichung, Taiwan), Norman W. M. Ko Collection (Hong Kong), Queensland Art Gallery (Brisbane, Australia), Raya Gallery (Melbourne, Australia), University Museum, Art Gallery of The University of Hong Kong (Formerly known as Fung Ping Shan Museum), Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Brisbane, Australia), and JTC Biopolis (Singapore). 

(Text and images courtesy of iPreciation)