Born in Georgetown, Penang, Wong Hoy Cheong studied literature and critical theory at Brandeis University, education and developmental psychology at Harvard University and visual arts at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Working in a wide range of visual media, Wong addresses concerns about identity and indigeneity, retrieving marginalised narratives, migration and globalisation, and the slipperiness between fact and fiction, past and present.

He has participated in major international exhibitions including Folkestone Triennial (2016 and 2021), Sydney Biennial (2018), Sunshower (Mori Art Museum Japan, 2017), Ural Industrial Biennale of Contemporary Art (2015), No Country (Guggenheim Museum, 2013), Photo Espana (2011), Lyon Biennale (2009), Fukuoka Triennial (1999 and 2009), Taipei Biennial (2008), Istanbul Biennale (2007), Guangzhou Triennial (2005), Liverpool Biennial (2004), Venice Biennale (2003), and Gwangju Biennale (2000).

In 2011, he received the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Creative Fellowship. In 2000, Newsweek (International) named him one of the ten trailblazers of Asia under the title “Mavericks and Rebels.” In 1999, Asiaweek named him one of the Ten Art and Culture “Leaders of the Next Millennium.” Deutsche Bank collects his work and has the 35th floor of its headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany, named after him.