Short Biography (200 words)
Rodrigo de Toledo is a Brazilian-American multidisciplinary visual artist, graphic designer, and animation professor at Northern Arizona University. De Toledo’s work has been awarded by Forbes, NASA, and Coca-Cola, by the official selection of international animation and film festivals such as SIGGRAPH and RioCine, and featured in the media, and publications, such as MTV, Canal + (France), How Magazine, Leonardo Journal, PBS (USA), Globo TV (Brazil). His whimsical, imaginary worlds were showcased worldwide in museum and gallery exhibitions, such as the Bibliotèque National de France, IBM Gallery, Miyagi Museum of Art (Japan), Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum (USA), and Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. In Rio de Janeiro, he studied music, video-art, animation, and painting at the Museum of Modern Art, and Parque Lage School of Visual Arts, received the degrees Computer Science Associate, Bachelor in Industrial Design/Graphic Design, and received a Master of Fine Arts, emphasis in Art and Technology (School of the Art Institute of Chicago). During the last decade, inspired by ancient mythological archetypes, and cartoons, he has focused on the design of a fictional mythology and its visual iconography. His work explores questions on identity and spirituality, and the media’s effect on personal memory and fantasy.
Detailed Biography
Rodrigo is a Brazilian-American visual artist, designer and educator, born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Rodrigo started his painting education in 1981 at the Museum of Modern Art, and Parque Lage School of Visual Arts, in Rio de Janeiro. He also studied music composition for two years, and video-art, and followed with the degrees: Computer Science Associate (ORT Institute of Technology, Rio de Janeiro, 1987), Bachelor in Industrial Design/Graphic Design (Faculdade da Cidade, Rio de Janeiro, 1992), and Master of Fine Arts, emphasis in Art and Technology (School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1995).
Rodrigo’s contemporary art production encompasses an imaginative blend of digital imaging, writing, painting, interactive art and animation. Rodrigo's work has been awarded and widely exhibited in art galleries, museums, publications, and festivals worldwide. A pioneer in the digital arts, since 1987, when he found his digital animation studio, Animagraph, in Rio, and where he worked until 1993. In 1995, Rodrigo joined NASA Ames Research Center’s Educational Multimedia Research & Development Group as an Art Director, in the Silicon Valley. Where he developed interactive learning projects and technologies for space science education, until 1999. Rodrigo’s innovative work for NASA was greatly awarded. In 2002, after working for various tech industry clients, as an experience design consultant in San Francisco, he joined Northern Arizona University (NAU), USA, as a Professor of Visual Communication. Rodrigo continues to teach and research at NAU. His teaching is focused on motion design, and animation, fictional world design, and experience design. His ongoing research and creative work concentrates on the design of a personal mythology and its visual iconography, as well as on immersive worlds experience design, and its cross-media applications.