Kendal Heyes studied during the late 1970s at the University of Auckland and Elam School of Fine Arts before moving to Sydney, where he graduated from the Sydney College of the Arts and the University of New South Wales. In 1987, he was the Frances Hodgkins Fellow at the University of Otago. In 1991, he was Artist in Residence at Sydney Grammar School. He was one of twelve artists selected for the 1990 Moët & Chandon New Zealand Art Foundation exhibition In the Forest of Dream.
