A North Carolina native, Rudel began his formal training at the University of North Carolina, Asheville, before moving on to the University of Georgia, where he received his MFA in Drawing and Painting. He has shown at galleries and museums throughout the country and has won a variety of juried competitions including the 2004 Mississippi Art Commission Artist Fellowship sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the 2002 New American Paintings Magazine MFA Annual Competition juried by former Guggenheim, NY director Lisa Dennison. In addition to exhibiting, Rudel is an Assistant Professor of Art at Virginia Wesleyan College, where he also serves as Curator of Exhibitions. Rudel’s works of contemporary realism present a diverse array of subject matter in ways that challenge viewers to think beyond the surface to the more complex relationships between objects and ideas.