Chris Mars

Artist Chris Mars was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he still lives and works today. His pieces are held in numerous public collections including The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, The Erie (PA) Art Museum, The Tweed (Duluth, MN), The Longview (TX) Museum of Fine Arts and The Minnesota History Center. Public exhibition venues have additionally included The Mesa (AZ) Museum of Contemporary Art, The American Visionary Art Museum (Baltimore), Laguna (CA) Museum of Art, The Steensland Art Museum (Northfield, MN), Fredrick Weisman Art Museum (Minneapolis, MN) and Art Center South Florida, among others. Upcoming exhibitions include Billy Shire Fine Arts (LA, CA) and The Phipps Center for the Arts (Hudson, WI). His debut monograph, TOLERANCE, was published in late 2008 by Billy Shire Fine Art Press. In addition to his painting, Mars endeavors in film and animation. An accomplished musician, Mars also released four solo albums (on Polygram and Bar None) subsequent to his tenure as drummer in The Replacements, a band he helped found in 1979 with Bob Stinson, Tommy Stinson and Paul Westerberg.
Chris’s work is influenced and inspired by his brother Joe’s experiences with mental illness, for which Joe was periodically institutionalized during Chris’s childhood, and with which Joe continues to struggle. The sensitivity and empathy Chris developed relative to these experiences are evident in his visual art, which serves to raise awareness of the various issues associated with mental illness and its treatment, as well as confronting xenophobia in its various social and psychological incarnations.