Ray Beldner
 96″x84″; archival pigment prints on laser cut ¾” maple plywood; 2019 Ray Beldner STATEMENT My collages use fragments of contemporary and historic artworks appropriated from fine art sources: auction catalogs, art magazines, art history books, and museum posters. They take the form of small, 2D works on paper as well as larger sculptural collages and 3D sculptures. The images used for the large-scale sculptural collages are first scanned, scaled up, and printed digitally on archival paper, then cut out and adhered to laser-cut 3/4” maple plywood. The cacophony of images layered onto the panel surfaces, at the same time familiar and foreign, are meant to be disorienting and lead the viewer through an endless examination of organic shapes, colors and textures, frustrating any attempt at coherence. BIO Ray Beldner is a sculptor and new media artist whose work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally and can be found in many public and private collections including the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and the Federal Reserve Board, Washington D.C., the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Oakland Museum of California, the San Jose Museum of Art, the diRosa Preserve in Napa, California, among others. Born in San Francisco, Beldner received a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and an MFA from Mills College. He has received numerous awards and fellowships including a California Arts Council Fellowship in New Genres, a Creative Work Fund Grant from the Haas Foundations, and a Potrero Nuevo environmental art grant. He has taught sculpture, interdisciplinary studies, and professional practices at the San Francisco Art Institute, California College of the Arts, San Francisco State University, and University of California, Santa Cruz. His work has been reviewed in publications including Art in America, Arte, Art On Paper, Artweek, Wired, Playboy, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, the Village Voice, the International Herald Tribune, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times. A profile of him and his work can be found in the book: Epicenter, San Francisco Bay Area Art Now by Chronicle Books. ARTIST CONTACT (415) 297-2319 IMAGES  72″x44″; archival pigment prints on laser cut ¾” maple plywood; 2019  54″x48″; archival pigment prints on laser cut ¾” maple plywood; 2019  9″x8″; archival pigment prints on laser cut ¾” maple plywood; 2020  9.5″x8″; archival pigment prints on laser cut ¾” maple plywood; 2020 |