Born in Hong Kong, Pui Yee (Josephine) Do immigrated to New Zealand in 1984. After completing a Bachelor degree at the Auckland University of Technology, she graduated with a Masters of Fine Arts with First Class Honours in 2000 from Auckland University majoring in Printmaking. For her doctorial studies she chose the topic of China Today, making her own identity as a person of Chinese origin living in New Zealand, caught between two cultural worlds, the starting point for her research.

She received two terms of New Zealand Federation of Graduate Women Fellowships and a University of Auckland Graduate Research Grant. Josephine is now teaching at the Hong Kong Institute of Education. She is currently working on one research project and one publication granted by Annie Wong Arts Foundation, ‘Talking about Contemporary Art from China’ and ‘The Artist Voice of China’.

The intermingling of traditions and the attitudes to show history as a process of change are evident in her work. Josephine has moved considerably forward in her search for her own identity, taking images that are characteristically Chinese, fusing them and creating a new reality of her own. Her large multi-media canvas and linen works show an immediacy and a suggestion of speed. Her use of vibrant colours and texture, the cropping, pasting, enlarging and manipulating of images reflect a sense of contemporary China, as well as the changing views of the past and the future of China with a powerful post colonial edge.