Auto-Intervention: Paintings by Chris Mars

Bacon Gallery
October 23, 2010 through January 23, 2011

Artist Chris Mars abandoned his successful career as a rock musician to paint haunting images of forsaken creatures, “monsters” with grey skin and unnaturally red lips, skeletons with flesh clinging to their skulls, misfits with moist and piercing eyes. His creatures populate a spooky world where trees are bent and twisted in the wind, the sky is smoky or stormy and the buildings are haunted houses from some indefinite time in the past.

Through this fascinating imagery—which simultaneously draws us in and repels us—Mars seeks to “create a voice for the voiceless; to offer love to the unloved and mercy to the condemned and banished.” The artist developed a deep personal connection to people with mental illness through childhood experiences of his own brother’s struggle with schizophrenia and the effects of its treatment.

“There are Real Monsters that walk this earth, cruel, evil people; oppressive, dehumanizing beliefs. The word Monster in its original application describes a child born with a physical deformity,” states Mars. “What does it mean that our society has taken this word now to mean “evil”? All of this speaks of a shallowness I seek to conquer. My work is about looking beyond the outer to the inner, and finding with this the true definition of Beauty—which is beyond form.”

Chris Mars was the drummer for the alt rock band The Replacements, and later a member of the ‘supergroup’ Golden Smog, before giving up music to focus on painting. His works are in the permanent collections of the Erie Art Museum, the American Visionary Art Museum, and the many other institutions.