IRENE CHOU (ZHOU LÜYUN, 1924-2011)

As the leading figure of Hong Kong’s New Ink Painting Movement in the early-1970s, Irene Chou sought to express her own inner universe through a highly original and innovative visual language.
Although undated, the current work was likely created in the mid to late 1980s. At that time Irene Chou emerged from a period of darkness after the death of her husband. She converted her home into a painting studio and felt liberated, fully submerged in the act of painting. It is also in this period that Chou developed her “impact” motif into “impact structural stroke” – a technique inspired by Zen painting whereby she splashed ink onto wet xuan paper. The sphere motif, which consists of tiny pointillist dots, is a long standing feature in Chou’s works spanning her entire artistic career, and represents her devotion to attention.