2016
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.
Crypto Carpenter
Located in San Juan, PR
In this new series Mercado utilizes canvas in big format as a medium to intervene Jack Delano's photographs of Puerto Rican agriculture workers he documented for the FSA in the 19...
Canvas, Neon Light, Spray Paint, Acrylic, Photogram
$25,000
H 84 in W 60 in D 2 in
Blue farmer boy in bicycle bringing lunch to the sugar field 2
Located in San Juan, PR
In this new series Mercado utilizes canvas in big format as a medium to intervene Jack Delano's photographs of Puerto Rican agriculture workers he documented for the FSA in the 19...
Canvas, Neon Light, Spray Paint, Acrylic, Photogram
Golden Maximo Cerulean
Located in San Juan, PR
Mixed Media Photography , hand painted C-Print mounted on a gold acrylic mirror enclosed on a Plexiglass box In this new series Mercado big format as a medium to intervene Jack Del...
Canvas, Neon Light, Spray Paint, Acrylic, Photogram
$15,000
H 60 in W 60 in D 2 in
Bitcoin boy bringing lunch to the sugar cane fields
Located in San Juan, PR
In this new series Mercado utilizes canvas in big format as a medium to intervene Jack Delano's photographs of Puerto Rican agriculture workers he documented for the FSA in the 1940's. Originally, Mercado intervened Delano's photographs in a C-Print medium , For this new series The Canvas big format creates a new dialogue with the observer. In this exhibit named “Iconos”, Carlos Mercado...
Canvas, Neon Light, Spray Paint, Acrylic, Photogram
boy bringing lunch to the fields 2
Located in San Juan, PR
In this new series Mercado utilizes canvas in big format as a medium to intervene Jack Delano's photographs of Puerto Rican agriculture workers he documented for the FSA in the 1940's. Originally, Mercado intervened Delano's photographs in a C-Print medium , For this new series The Canvas big format creates a new dialogue with the observer. In this exhibit named “Iconos”, Carlos Mercado...
Canvas, Neon Light, Spray Paint, Acrylic, Photogram
Man in crypto truck
Located in San Juan, PR
In this new series Mercado utilizes canvas in big format as a medium to intervene Jack Delano's photographs of Puerto Rican agriculture workers he documented for the FSA in the 1940's. Originally, Mercado intervened Delano's photographs in a C-Print medium , For this new series The Canvas big format creates a new dialogue with the observer. In this exhibit named “Iconos”, Carlos Mercado...
Canvas, Neon Light, Spray Paint, Acrylic, Photogram
Colmadito
Located in San Juan, PR
In this new series Mercado utilizes canvas in big format as a medium to intervene Jack Delano's photographs of Puerto Rican agriculture workers he documented for the FSA in the 1940's. Originally, Mercado intervened Delano's photographs in a C-Print medium , For this new series The Canvas big format creates a new dialogue with the observer. In this exhibit named “Iconos”, Carlos Mercado...
Canvas, Neon Light, Spray Paint, Acrylic, Photogram
Golden Maximo Yellow
Located in San Juan, PR
Mixed Media Photography , hand painted C-Print mounted on a gold acrylic mirror enclosed on a Plexiglass box In this new series Mercado big format as a medium to intervene Jack Del...
Canvas, Neon Light, Spray Paint, Acrylic, Photogram
Golden Maximo Red
Located in San Juan, PR
Mixed Media Photography , hand painted C-Print mounted on a gold acrylic mirror enclosed on a Plexiglass box In this new series Mercado big format as a medium to intervene Jack Del...
Canvas, Neon Light, Spray Paint, Acrylic, Photogram
Blue black farmer boy
Located in San Juan, PR
In this new series Mercado utilizes canvas in big format as a medium to intervene Jack Delano's photographs of Puerto Rican agriculture workers he documented for the FSA in the 19...
Canvas, Acrylic, Neon Light, Spray Paint, Photogram
