Born in Shanghai, Irene Chou (1924–2011) was an influential artist of the New Ink Painting movement in Hong Kong. Upon graduating from St. John's University with a degree in economics in 1945, she worked as a journalist before moving to Taiwan and then Hong Kong. Chou began to study under the Lingnan-school painter Zhao Shao'ang (1905–98) in 1945, and her works from the 1950s and early 1960s reflect her deft command of traditional Chinese painting techniques and media. By the late 1960s, after encountering the works and theories of Lui Shou-kwan (1919–75) who initiated the New Ink Painting movement that sought to synthesize the traditional medium with concepts from Western modernism, Chou shifted to a modern approach to ink painting and became a member of the In-Tao Art Association founded by Lui. Chou began to explore various techniques including piled ink, splashed ink, and pointillism, creating experimental works that drew inspiration from sources ranging from Peking opera to ancient Chinese scripts. She is best known for her dynamic abstract paintings imbued with a metaphysical dimension. Produced from the 1980s onward, these works on the subject of rebirth, the mind, and the universe, are characterized by their free and energetic calligraphic brushwork used in conjunction with ink and color washes.

Chou was recipient of the Urban Council Fine Art Award of Hong Kong in 1983, and the Artist of the Year Award from the Hong Kong Artists' Guild in 1988. Solo exhibitions of her work have been mounted at the Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane; Cat Street Galleries, Hong Kong; Taipei Fine Art Museum; Raya Gallery, Melbourne; Fung Ping Shan Museum, Hong Kong; City Gallery, Manila; among many others. Her work has also been featured in group exhibitions at the City Museum and Art Gallery, Hong Kong; Evansville Museum, Indiana; Hong Kong Museum of Art; National Museum, Singapore; Ashmolean Museum; Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane; among other venues. Chou's work is held in the collections of the British Museum; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Hong Kong Museum of Art; Chinese University Museum; Queensland Art Gallery; National Museum of History, Taipei, among other institutions.

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