ROBERT MARS

“My paintings employ layers of color, subtly collaged printed matter from the 1950’s and 1960’s, and stark, black imagery. Remote, indistinct landscapes capture the once poetic, and now nearly lost highway strips of the American past. Formerly the promise of hope and prosperity; these icons are now a sign of desperation and ruin.”
- Robert Mars

Robert Mars’ artwork chronicles an evolving fascination with the Golden Age of American popular culture and celebrates the icons of the 1950’s and 60’s by taking inspiration from this culture long past. Through the application of a rich color palette and tongue-in-cheek attitude, Mars’ paintings evoke a vintage quality of design and pay homage to the idealized age of growth and hopefulness that was prevalent in the USA at the end of the Depression. A time before the internet and mobile technology, where information was not instantly available to millions and there was no such thing as instant internet celebrities, and instead people lived with the myth of the unique, untouchable and unforgettable personalities of Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean, Audrey Hepburn and Elvis Presley.

By merging his own concept of personal idols with those of mainstream culture, Mars is able to focus his work on a deeper analysis of the Golden Age of American personalities. As an artist, he has always been fascinated with 1950’s and 60’s culture, and his early work reflects many of the architectural and mechanical icons from this era. Muscle cars, motels, logos and hulking monuments to the “modern” feeling of the time permeate his canvases.