#  University of Oxford | Cognitive Art History as New Humanities: How to Capture a Painter’s Brain? 

 



    ![Abstract painting](/sites/g/files/omnuum4426/files/styles/hwp_5_4__480x385/public/2026-10/image.png?h=43fe2035&itok=z58haTFl) 

 



 

####  calendar\_today Date and Time 

 **October 28, 2026** 

 05:00PM EDT 

####  pin\_drop Location 

 **University of Oxford: Oakeshott Room, Lincoln College**  



 

 



 

It is rare for an artist to paint her own brain. Yet Irene Chou (1924–2011), a leading Hong Kong ink painter, did just that. When confronted with the X-ray that confirmed her diagnosis of cerebellar atrophy, Chou saw her life inscribed within it: “I saw vital images of *tree branches* … that is life—my life.”

Her artistic engagement with trees had begun decades earlier. In the secluded forests of Hong Kong, she obsessively sketched “ten thousand trees,” a practice that became both a psychological necessity and a means of imposing order on overwhelming inner turmoil. Her later work connected these outward forms with the vascular and neural patterns revealed in medical images of her brain.

[**Click here for more information.**](https://www.hoa.ox.ac.uk/events/painters-brain-towards-cognitive-art-history)



 

 



 

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