Baby Center Stage
Robert MarsBaby Center Stage2020
2020
About the Item
- Creator:Robert Mars (1969, American)
- Creation Year:2020
- Dimensions:Height: 40 in (101.6 cm)Width: 60 in (152.4 cm)Depth: 2.5 in (6.35 cm)
- Medium:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:Napa, CA
- Reference Number:Seller: ROMX-40201stDibs: LU14427236962
Robert Mars
Juxtaposing the faces of iconic celebrities with patterns reminiscent of quilting and folk art, Robert Mars (b. 1969) considers the many facets of American popular culture through the lens of advertising.
In Mars’s mixed-media works, brand names are collaged beneath the visages of mid-century stars such as Elvis, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe and Jackie Kennedy, with neon lighting and shiny coats of resin on wood panels lending each piece the allure of a covetable consumer object.
Born in New Jersey, Mars studied at the Parsons School of Design and worked for a time as a graphic designer. His cultural mash-ups draw on imagery from his collection of vintage magazines. Combining enlarged Xerox transfers and boldly painted colors in several built-up layers, his works recall the messy remixing of everyday objects by Robert Rauschenberg as well as the explorations of mass reproduction and fame by Andy Warhol. The shape of a Chanel No. 5 bottle, a Louis Vuitton logo and a photograph of Audrey Hepburn are all plucked from mass media as relics of Americana and the obsession with luxury. Distressing the surfaces of the pieces, Mars gives them a timeworn texture, like an old advertisement that might be found on the wall of a roadside gas station, but with a surreal quality in their recontextualized subjects.
The stars and mass-media material in Mars’s work mostly have origins in the 1950s and ’60s, an age that saw the rise of celebrity endorsements during a postwar economic boom in which there were plenty of novel new products to promote. An image of Jackie Kennedy is overlaid with ad copy for Dior; a photograph of a victorious Muhammad Ali is joined with Champion Spark Plugs typography. The nostalgia here is for commerce as much as it is for people who became a brand. In the artist’s dynamic collages, the lines between what, or who, is being packaged and sold are blurred.
Mars has produced commissions for Coca-Cola, was a featured artist for a project with Kari Whitman Interiors and was chosen in 2015 for the cover of Neiman Marcus’s May Book. He has exhibited at the Evansville Museum of Art, Coral Springs Museum of Art and elsewhere.
Find Robert Mars mixed-media works, paintings and other art on 1stDibs.
- No Stranger to LoveBy Robert MarsLocated in Napa, CAMixed Media on Panel with UV Resin Neon Robert Mars’ graphic compositions and rich colors provide an ideal medium in which to explore his fascination with the Golden Age of American popular culture and the icons of the 1950’s and 60’s. Drawing inspiration from the near-mythical fame that surrounded celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe or Audrey Hepburn before the instant and all-encompassing presence of the internet, Mars’ daring approach creates paintings with a nostalgic yet innovative vintage quality. Beginning by defining borders and background planes of color with sheets of brown paper, Mars then proceeds to layer paint and vintage paper ephemera...Category
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- Coat CheckBy Robert MarsLocated in Napa, CARobert Mars’ graphic compositions and rich colors provide an ideal medium in which to explore his fascination with the Golden Age of American popular culture and the icons of the 1950’s and 60’s. Drawing inspiration from the near-mythical fame that surrounded celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe or Audrey Hepburn before the instant and all-encompassing presence of the internet, Mars’ daring approach creates paintings with a nostalgic yet innovative vintage quality. Mars begins by defining borders and background planes of color with sheets of brown paper and then proceeds to layer paint and vintage paper ephemera...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Mixed Media
MaterialsMixed Media, Panel, Resin
Sold$5,000 - Heart's ArmsBy Robert MarsLocated in Napa, CARobert Mars’ graphic compositions and rich colors provide an ideal medium in which to explore his fascination with the Golden Age of American popular culture and the icons of the 1950’s and 60’s. Drawing inspiration from the near-mythical fame that surrounded celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe or Audrey Hepburn before the instant and all-encompassing presence of the internet, Mars’ daring approach creates paintings with a nostalgic yet innovative vintage quality. Mars begins by defining borders and background planes of color with sheets of brown paper and then proceeds to layer paint and vintage paper ephemera...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Mixed Media
MaterialsResin, Mixed Media, Panel
$5,000 - Long Distance RunaroundBy Robert MarsLocated in Napa, CAMixed Media, Panel, UV Resin Robert Mars uses art to express nostalgia for a time before he was born. An artistic descendent of Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg, he explores Amer...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Mixed Media
MaterialsResin, Mixed Media, Panel
- You've Got a Lot to LikeBy Robert MarsLocated in Napa, CAMixed Media, Panel, UV Resin Robert Mars uses art to express nostalgia for a time before he was born. An artistic descendent of Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg, he explores Amer...Category
2010s Pop Art Mixed Media
MaterialsResin, Mixed Media, Panel
- All TransistorBy Robert MarsLocated in Napa, CARobert Mars’ graphic compositions and rich colors provide an ideal medium in which to explore his fascination with the Golden Age of American popular culture and the icons of the 1950’s and 60’s. Drawing inspiration from the near-mythical fame that surrounded celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe or Audrey Hepburn before the instant and all-encompassing presence of the internet, Mars’ daring approach creates paintings with a nostalgic yet innovative vintage quality. Beginning by defining borders and background planes of color with sheets of brown paper, Mars then proceeds to layer paint and vintage paper ephemera. Mars selectively sands segments of the layers, allowing specific portions of the underpainting, creating the sensation that the viewer is getting glimpses through a window into the Golden Age of America. By incorporating actual pieces of print from the eras he so adores and sealing it all under shining, impenetrable resin, Mars’s artworks transform into physical remembrances of a period in America’s past so loved and idolized, yet will forever remain trapped in history. A graduate of Parsons School of Design in New York, his artwork was selected for the Absolut Vodka Blank campaign alongside Damien Hirst, and his largest sized piece to date was acquired by Philip Morris/Altria for their corporate headquarters in Virginia. In 2015 Mars was chosen for the cover of Neiman Marcus’ May Book, while CocaCola purchased several existing works and ordered commissions for a world tour celebrating the 100-year anniversary of their trademark bottle shape, in which his artwork was spotlighted. Mars is a featured artist for a custom high end wallpaper and tile series...Category
2010s Mixed Media
MaterialsResin, Mixed Media, Panel
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- Femme á la Pipe (White)By Anne-Céline GranduryLocated in Quogue, NYVibrant, colorful and dynamic mixed media on panel with high gloss resin finishCategory
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- Femme á la Pipe (Orange)By Anne-Céline GranduryLocated in Quogue, NYVibrant, colorful and dynamic mixed media on panel with high gloss resin finishCategory
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- Femme á la Pipe (Magenta)By Anne-Céline GranduryLocated in Quogue, NYVibrant, colorful and dynamic mixed media on panel with high gloss resin finishCategory
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Mixed Media
MaterialsResin, Mixed Media, Panel
- The One With The Gold StarLocated in Los Angeles, CABay Area artist Melanie Tiongson's fun and whimsical artworks feature figures full of curiosity inspired by Filipino folklore and the uncompromised f...Category
2010s Contemporary Figurative Paintings
MaterialsResin, Mixed Media, Acrylic, Wood Panel
- The One With The AttitudeLocated in Los Angeles, CABay Area artist Melanie Tiongson's fun and whimsical artworks feature figures full of curiosity inspired by Filipino folklore and the uncompromised f...Category
2010s Contemporary Figurative Paintings
MaterialsResin, Mixed Media, Acrylic, Wood Panel