Luise Fong

Luise Fong (born 1964) is a Malaysian-born New Zealand artist, known for her feminine organic abstract shapes in contrast to the hard-edge abstraction often associated with her male predecessors. Fong was born in Sandakan, Malaysia, and moved to Auckland, New Zealand, at a young age. In 1983, she started study at the Wellington Polytechnic for textile design. She was later accepted into University of Auckland's Elam School of Fine Arts in 1986, and was graduated with Bachelor of Fine Arts in print-making in 1989. Fong was lecturing at Elam School of Fine Arts between 1993-1994, and in 1994, she was granted artist-in-residence at University of Melbourne's Victorian College of the Arts. In 1994, Fong was the joint Premier Award winners with Bill Hammond for the Visa Gold Art Award, the largest art prize in New Zealand at the time. Fong moved to Melbourne in 1995, and worked there until 2001, when she was made a lecturer in painting at University of Auckland's Elam School of Fine Arts. She was working there until 2005. Her work was part of several important international exhibitions, including Cultural Safety: Contemporary Art from New Zealand, in Frankfurter Kunstverein in Germany (1995) and Trans/fusion: Hong Kong artists' exchange, Hong Kong Arts Centre and Auckland Art City Gallery (1996). Fong has held many residency positions; including a residency at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in 1995, and University of Canterbury in 1999. Fong was artist in residence at the McCahon House Residency in Titirangi in 2008. In 2020, Fong discovered a missing painting by Dame Louise Henderson, in Mount Albert Grammar School. Fong attended a function event, and was given a tour of their G J Moyal Collection. Art Galleries throughout Auckland and Christchurch were trying to locate April from The "Twelve Months" series for the exhibition Louise Henderson: From Life. Fong recognised the style and suspected it could be the missing painting, which it turned out to be.