Luise Fong was born in Malaysia in 1964 and arrived in Aotearoa that same year. In 1989, she graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts. She lectured there until 1994, when she moved to Melbourne as artist in residence at the Victorian College of Arts. Her work has been widely collected and much exhibited. It featured in all the major shows of the 1990s featuring younger contemporary New Zealand artists: Shadow of Style (1992), Alter Image (1993), A Very Peculiar Practice (1995), Cultural Safety (1995), and Skirting Abstraction (1996).