Following his graduation with a Bachelor of Fine Art from the Caulfield Institute of Art (now Monash University) in 1976, Eric Quah settled in Australia. Between 1977 and 1991, he taught in the Chinese Language Department at Richmond College, and later became the director of the Museum of Chinese Australian History. He had also taught Art in Sabah. He had a stint at the New York Studio School in New York in 1982-83 under a scholarship, and a year teaching fellowship in Nanjing, China, in 1984-85. It was there that he created the mixed-media (de)collage, TIME (1982), which was featured in the seminal art collage book, Collage Handbook (Thames & Hudson, New York) in 1983. After three decades in Australia, Eric Quah relocated in 2003 to Penang, where he is based ever since, and in December 2001, he was honoured wth a Retrospective by the Penang State Art Gallery. Eric Quah's 53rd solo exhibition was held at Jade's Art Space, Penang, in early 2024.