“Like many artists, I make art from the stuff of everyday life: clothing, cash, stolen items, porn. My work takes the form of sculpture, installation, print, digital media, text-based work, and applied arts. It is frequently derived from conceptual ideas that deconstruct hierarchical systems ‘high art’ versus ‘low art,’ ‘intrinsic value’ versus ‘commercial value,’ and so on with ironic humor.”

Ray Beldner is a mixed media artist and for the past 25 years, has exhibited his art both nationally and internationally. His work can be found in many public and private collections including the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and the Federal Reserve Board, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Oakland Museum of California, the San Jose Museum of Art. The work is in several corporate collections as well: Saks Fifth Ave, Bain Capital, McKesson Corporation, and Ryan Associates.

Born in San Francisco, Beldner received a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and an MFA from Mills College in Oakland, California. 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 and interdisciplinary studies at the San Francisco Art Institute and the California College of the Arts, U.C. Berkeley, and University of California, Santa Cruz.

His work has been reviewed in publications including Art in America, Art on Paper, Wired, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, the Village Voice, the International Herald Tribune and the New York Times. Recent catalogues with his work include: Inventing Marcel Duchamp: The Dynamics of Portraiture, MIT Press, 2009; Art of Engagement: Visual Politics in California and Beyond, University of California Press, 2006; Imaginary Economics: Contemporary Artists and the World of Big Money, NAi Publishers, 2005. A profile of him and his work can be found in the book: Epicenter, San Francisco Bay Area Art Now, by Chronicle Books. 

Ray had a solo exhibition of collages in 2016 with Platform, and his work was included in the group exhibitions Intercourse, in 2007, and Paperwork, in 2004.