iPreciation presents 超越逆境 — 周綠雲・後期小品展 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.
Venue: iPRECIATION, 50 Cuscaden Road, HPL House #01-01, Singapore 249724
Hours: 9am – 6pm (Mon – Fri)
11am – 6pm (Sat)
Closed on Sundays and Public Holidays
When: 27 Jul - 15 Aug 2026,
By: iPRECIATION
