BFA, Drawing & Painting (California State University Long Beach), DipTeach (ACE), MFA, Fine Arts (Whitecliffe)

Rudy is a Mexican-American of mixed Mayo Indian and Spanish extraction. He won six scholarships before attending the prestigious Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles. In 1986, he participated in the Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament, which was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. He settled in New Zealand with his wife and three children and taught art at the Eastern Institute of Technology, the Hawke’s Bay Museum in Napier and in secondary schools. In 1989 he was the first person to build and fly a Manu Aute traditional Maori birdman kite in 125 years.

He has exhibited regularly in the Hawke’s Bay and Auckland and has work in many private collections around the world. His current interest is in notions of ‘the everyday’ and how this seemingly banal concept can be artistically provocative. In 2005, his first novel, The Song of Laughing Bird, was published in New Zealand. In 2008, his Masters dissertation, The Intimate Real, was published in Germany by VDM.