Chronicling a fascination with 1950’s and 60’s iconography, Robert Mars creates artwork that celebrates both the commonplace objects and spectacular icons of an era long past and how they remain relevant in today's society.
Robert Mars uses art to express nostalgia for a time before he was born. He explores American Pop icons from Marilyn Monroe to Coca-Cola, packaging celebrities opposite brand names and advertising copy as though they were luxury objects. To create his work, he uses Xerox transfer to layer images and text pulled from his vast archive of vintage magazines—making photocopies and blowing them up to enhance their imperfections—and adds boldly colored paint and minimalist patterns, then distresses the image to further highlight the sense of a fading era. Mars finishes the works with a coat of resin, or by adding neon lights, imparting a glossy sheen to these memorials to desire.
Robert’s eye for a distinct facet of American history is impeccable, and his ability to manipulate both the color and wordplay of vintage printed material has earned him reference with the likes of Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, and Richard Diebenkorn, among other masters from the School of Pop. By taking inspiration from the Golden Age of American popular culture and celebrating figures of the 1950’s and 60’s. Although looking to the past, his artwork reflects a thoroughly modern vision, and is presented in an exquisitely constructed manner. The past is always present.
A graduate of Parsons School of Design in New York, Mars often references his decades as a graphic designer in his work. Mars’ artwork is exhibited worldwide including museum, corporate, and private collections in Munich, Tokyo, Amsterdam, London, Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Laguna Beach, Paris, Aspen and Australia.
