About

ABOUT THE ARTIST 

Growing up as a young chicano in Southern California during the turbulent farm worker revolution, Edward Ortiz Buendia yearned to know more about his culture. His journey of discovery took him back to the Maya Civilization, where his family began with the tribe of Fourteen Rabbit in the Yucatàn peninsula. Edward was instantly amazed and captivated by the Maya language, art, culture, and the Toltec life.

The Maya hieroglyphics inspired him to start drawing and painting, while studying such Mexican Masters as Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco, Frida Kahlo, Rufino Tamayo, and David Alfaro Siqueiros.

It was Siqueiros who most influenced Edward’s artwork, and as a result he began painting murals in Southern California.
The mural projects had the added bonus of helping to educate the local gang members and lowriders in his neighborhood about their culture and instilled pride. As a muralist, Edward was able to gain access to areas that not even law enforcement or the news media would enter. He knew the culture and has the talent to express it on the walls.

Edward discovered the art of airbrushing by painting lowriders in East Los Angeles, the Coachella Valley and Imperial County. He painted on autos, motorbikes, vans etc. during the 1970’s and 1980‘s.

Edward Buendia is the Founder and Creator of the non-profit “Eyes of the Innocent” children’s art program. Since 1975, he has taught over 3,000 children and adults in fine arts. In addition to his expert teaching, he has a long history of establishing and collaborating on the development of socially valuable multi-disciplinary artistic initiatives. In the 1970s, he founded Artistas Del Barrio, a collective of muralists in Southern California whose murals have taken on historical significance and influenced generations of muralists.

He studied art at Florida State University and spent a year at Oxford University in 1988. In the early 90’s, he was one of the first Commissioners to serve on the City of Indio Arts Council in the Coachella Valley. In 1996, he co-founded the Point Roberts Washington Arts Foundation and the Point Roberts Arts & Music Festival.

Since December 2010, he has created over a hundred images in collaboration with NASA Award Winning DIGIVATIONS Institute‘s Co-Founders Steven Lee Berman and Anne Deane Berman, PhD/ These images include illustrations for their Rocketry Playbook, Sphere of Influence Game, and the world’s first overnight Camp Demigod as well as several logos. He teaches drawing and painting as a faculty member of the DIGIVATIONS Institute.

His work has been purchased by private collectors around the world and he has an ever-growing circle of fans and admirers, from gang members to millionaires, priests to politicians. Edward Buendia has shown in Palm Springs, California and the Pacific Northwest. He has successfully worked with children in the mainstream public school system as well as Autistic children.

A graduate of the art program at University of Oxford–Christ Church College, United Kingdom, Edward’s artwork is permanently stored, and on display in Ashmolean museum of Art and Archaeology University of Oxford, displayed beside the work of DaVinci and Michelangelo. As well as an art piece in the White House, this art piece is a part of the White House art collection.

The father of two grown girls, he is currently traveling the United States and Canada drawing and painting with his wife Darlanne and their Chihuahua, Suzy Q.