Featured Artist: Robert Mars

Artist Statement:
For me, my art evokes feelings of my childhood and the goodness associatedwith that time in my life. Neon signs and classic automobiles bring back memories of summertime roadtrips with my family, passing through small towns and past large cities. Stopping at roadside motels after a long day of travel. The glow and buzz of neon became a comfort for the weary.
My paintings use layers of colors familiar from that time, coupled with stark, black imagery. Quiet landscapes that speak of the lost highway strips of the American past.

I have shown in galleries in Tokyo, Munich, Portland, New York, Seattle,Vancouver,Melbourne and Austin. You can contact me at www.robertmars.com or www.constructclothing.com.

Q&A with Robert Mars:
Q: You've mentioned that your art finds inspiration in the family road trips you took in your childhood. Are there any specific ventures that stand out in your memory?
A: A roadtrip to Busch Gardens in Virginia, around 1976. The light of the season and the air from the open car window blowing in my face stand out as memories.

Q: How did you discover that you were an artist?
A: I was always armed with a 64 pack of crayola crayons with the built in sharpener. Weapon of choice!

Q: When did you begin taking your art seriously as a career ?
A: Seriously, around the year 2000 when I stopped skateboarding for the first time in 14 years to make art. I have since started skating again!

Q: You recently participated in a custom toy show with our gallery. What did you think of the whole art-on-toy experience?
A: It was a nice change from a flat canvas. Thinking three dimensionally makes you realize that things have many sides and you have to account for all of them. One downside is that one plastic hand that doesn't take well to paint and remains tacky forever!

Q: What is a typical morning like in the life of Rob Mars?
A: NPR, a shower, a walk to the post office to deliver t shirts and the N train into the city where I get grapefruit and juice and spend the day making graphics for hip hop kids.

Q: Favorite breakfast cereal?
A: Kashi with soy milk.

Q: Your art takes a lot from your childhood, but is there anything in your current surroundings that you feel directly influences your art?
A: Every place that I live has direct influence on my work. Los Angeles and Portland are the old neon and vintage cars part. Brooklyn has the bodega corner stores, vintage liquor signs, flat tire repair shops and abandoned bicycles.

Q: How do you prepare when getting ready to create a new painting?
A: I start with a canvas and sketch out what I think it should look like but it always seems to transform as I go along and if I see something else as I paint I roll with it.

Q: If you could be amazingly famous and successful doing one thing, what would it be?
A: Hip Hop star....No, really I am happy with my small t shirt company and making paintings.

Q: If you had to go by an alias/artist name, what would it be?
A: What, mine isn't good enough already?

Q: You're a clothing designer by day; do you feel a significant difference or separation between art for work and art for art's sake?
A: 100% difference..when I design for my day job it's all about the company and what they need. When I design and paint for myself it's my own expression. Whatever it lends itself to.

Q: You moved to New York from Portland about a year or so ago, how's the Big Apple treating you?
A: I was away from New York for 10 years and obviously a lot has changed. It took a minute to acclimate back to the pace but I am loving it. Being close to family and old friends. Living in Brooklyn for the first time has opened my eyes to how amazing this place is. I do miss Portland and my friends there as well as Newberg Skatepark.

Q: Do you get to do a lot of traveling nowadays?
A: Not as much as I did when I lived in Portland but work sends me to Asia and Europe twice a year so that seems to be good for now. My next personal vacation will be Tulsa and Oklahoma City to do some research.

Q: What was the first band that you really went crazy over?
A: Kiss..no question.

Q: Who are some of your biggest artistic influences?
A: Robert Rauschenberg wins for all time achievement award. Richard Diebenkorn for abstract composition. Egon Schiele for amazing line quality. Margaret Kilgallen for sheer artistic beauty. Thomas Campbell for genuine visual language. Joseph Cornell for collage mastery. Angela Boatwright for genius vision and technical wizardy behind the lens.

Q: Are there any mediums that you're dying to try out?
A: Encaustic and metal.

Q: Did you have any heroes as a child that you can't seem to stand now?
A: Gene Simmons of Kiss. He has become a parody of himself.

Q: Paper or plastic?
A: I will have to say paper.

Q: If there was one specific feeling/emotion that you wanted the viewers of your paintings to have, what would it be?
A: Nostalgia, is that an emotion..I mean deep sadness. ha!


Q: Complete this sentence: If I were ruler of the universe, I...
A: ... would see people live in harmony with each other.


10 Things Robert Mars misses about Portland:

1. Friends
2. Newberg Skatepark
3. Uzi
4. Stumptown Coffee
5. adidas
6. 4858 NE Alberta Ct
7. Yokos Sushi
8. Quiet time
9. Shows at a reasonable price
10. A Backyard

Art pieces available on our web store.
http://www.justbecomplex.com/catalog/index.php/cPath/25_181