For his first solo show at Jonathan LeVine Gallery, Chris Mars has created his most political body of work to date, focusing on issues ranging from social injustice and media corruption to the appropriation of labels - positive or negative, religious or otherwise - for the purpose of control of the Spirit. Subderma has recently concluded an acclaimed run at The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, which also holds Mars' work in its permanent collection.  

Strongly influenced as a young boy by visits to the mental hospital where his sixteen-year-old brother was treated for schizophrenia, each painting reveals the darkest and most sincere realities of the human soul. Chris Mars depicts these haunting memories through his paintings of distorted figures existing in an uncomfortable and desolate time and space.

Also featured will be Mars' thirteen minute animated film The Severed Stream, a fascinating stream-of-consciousness journey inside and through the paintings' imagery, and the some of the artist's notions regarding them. 

Chris Mars was born in 1961 in Minneapolis where he applied his musical talents and co-formed the band “The Replacements” before focusing on independent recording projects and art exhibitions in the 90’s. His work has been featured in solo exhibitions at The Erie Art Museum, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, The Steensland Museum and the Coker Bell Museum, as well as group exhibitions at The American Visionary Art Museum and The Weisman.  His work is included in many prestigious private and public collections, including MIA and The Minnesota History Center.  His work has shown throughout the United States and Canada, and have been widely published in magazines such as Juxtapoz, Rolling Stone, The Los Angeles Times, Entertainment Weekly, Rue Morgue, Magnet and soon a ten-page feature in International Tattoo Art. Mars is presently at work on his first monograph, a compilation of his visual and written works, due out in 2007.