Born in Shanghai, Irene Chou graduated from St. John University in 1945 and worked as a journalist for Peace Daily Shanghai until she settled in Hong Kong in 1949. Chou was a student of Zhao Shao'ang's and was formally trained in the Lingnan school of painting. Chou's breakthrough from the Lingnan school came when she became a student of Lui Shou Kwan in the late 1960s.

Her signature compositions are dark and complex, compelling viewers to enter her state of mind. Chou's art was inspired by the quote by Chinese philosopher Lu Jiuyan "The Universe is my mind; my mind is the Universe".

In the 1970s, she experienced a temporary melancholic state and devoted her time to cultivate her "piled ink" technique. Since the 1980s, Chou's works became more bold and energetic, encompassing a sense of primordial creation and cosmic vision. Her works at that time frequently featured themes of rebirth, with feminine-associated imageries resembling the uterus and the fetus.

Irene Chou was born in Shanghai in 1924 and worked as a journalist after graduating from St. John’s University in 1945. Arriving in Hong Kong in 1949, Chou began to study Chinese painting under Lingnan master Zhao Shao’ang (1905-1998). Her career as an artist reached a breakthrough in the early 1960s when she met Lui Shou Kwan (1919-1975), the pioneer of the New Ink Painting Movement. It was under Lui’s influence that Chou began to paint in an expressive and personal manner. Chou’s later works are especially known for her bold use of colour, lines and spheres to convey her powerful, explosive expressions and emotions stemming from her reflections on the human life and the universe. Irene Chou died in 2011.