Agnes Chow

Agnes has always had a keen eye for beauty, having worked in graphic design for beauty and luxury brands within 4As agencies, most notably as the Regional Creative Director for Asia-Pacific at Ogilvy.

As she enters a new phase in life, she chooses to find beauty in Chinese calligraphy, appreciating the simplicity of its strokes, the richness of its history and literature, and the understated elegance of the color black. Her creative space, Black Ink, serves as a love letter to life and to herself as she embarks on this new journey as an artist.

Drawing from the yin and yang aesthetics in Chinese philosophy, Agnes begins her process with water, then adds traditional Chinese black and gold ink to observe the independent flow of ink and water. She uses stone-ground paper, allowing her to control the interaction between water and ink to create mountain-like forms and compositions that
she finds aesthetically pleasing. The relative application of yin and yang—coexistence, harmony, transformation, and the interplay of emptiness and form—guides both the gentle flow of direction and the strong brushstrokes that define her scenes.

Agnes also holds a deep appreciation for Chinese calligraphy, particularly the Wei dynasty style of large character script. The bold, thick strokes serve as a core element of her creative expression. Through the historical context of Chinese characters and the form of brushwork, she conveys abstract ideas, using the shape of characters as a foundation. This technique breathes life into still objects and embodies a pursuit of natural harmony, becoming an integral part of her dark, glamorous world.

She invites others to indulge in black—to feel quiet, unmolested, and simple. Even in a dark world, she finds a way to express the existence of all things through the color black. Black, in her eyes, possesses countless shades of shadow as light passes through it. She experiments with the compatibility of these shades and the natural flow of ink. In her work, traditional Chinese ink painting meets contemporary art, revealing a new form of visual communication.