Chris Mars

Chris Mars

Rock star, recluse, brother, activist. Artist. Chris Mars’ work graces the hallowed halls of museums throughout America and is tattooed on calves and biceps throughout the world.

Chris Mars was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1961 to parents Constance and Leroy Mars. He is the youngest of seven children. Mars’s eldest brother Joe suffered a so-called Nervous Breakdown in 1966 and was institutionalized at St. Cloud Mental Hospital. The impact of that event, along with Joe’s life-long struggle with Schizophrenia, set the groundwork for a life’s mission of championing society’s downtrodden and outcast. Mars hopes his work causes the viewer to question the nature of evaluation and labels, be it by investigating the meaning of beauty or by casting aside the exclusion of the meek, the forgotten, or the enemy. 

Like many artists, Mars seeks to know Truth. In his canvases are villains and angels, though one’s initial demarcation may, as in life, prove false. Believing that truth comes through the educational exploration of a given subject, Mars offers in his work a particular truth exposed and defined through his unending personal scrutiny of self and of society and an amazing technical control of the medium. 

Chris Mars was once best known as a musician, being a founder member of seminal indie/punk band The Replacements and subsequently recording four critically acclaimed – and progressively more experimental -- solo discs. His drumsticks are enshrined in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

His paintings are enshrined in the permanent collection of various museums throughout the country including The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, The Erie Art Museum, The Longview Museum of Fine Art, The Tweed Art Museum and The Minnesota History Center. His museum exhibition history also includes The American Visionary Art Museum, The Weisman Museum of Art, Steensland Art Museum, Art Center South Florida and soon The Phipps Center for the Arts. 

Video Installations

"The Severed Stream"
Animation
Runtime: 13:18
2005

"Second-Hand Loppo"
Animation
Runtime: 7:40
2006