Carol Rudyard came to art late in life, completing formal studies when she was in her late forties. She is now regarded as one of Western Australia's most important media artists.

Born in England, she left Sheffield in 1947 with her husband, a doctor employed by the British Government, and lived on the Gilbert and Ellice Islands (British Colonies in the Pacifc). They arrrived in Western Australia in 1950, and lived in Mullewa and Southern Cross, before settling in the Perth suburb of Leederville in 1956.

At this point Rudyard began designing textiles, quickly achieving both commercial and artistic success. She enrolled in an Associate Diploma in Art at the West Australian Institute of Technology from 1968-1970. Her paintings of the 1970s were influenced by her interest in music and contemporary trends in American abstract painting.

After completing a postgraduate diploma in visual art at Curtin University in 1981, Rudyard abandoned painting, turning instead to the exploration of new technologies, including video and audio installations, which, for her, became a vehicle for an oblique and rather poetic commentary on contemporary society.