May 23rd – June 21st, 2026Artist Statement:
Volume, frequency, tone, aim, agenda, angle, meant well, malicious;
Louder. Loudest – who is the righteous one?
Which is the one I believe, that I follow?
Truth is rarely loudest, shouted, broadcast – it’s something you need to look for, to listen for, to seek out.
Even sought out; even looked for, listened for, chased after, studied and probed, The Truth – despite our innate desire for a single, indisputable, uneroded, unshakable monolith of universal veracity, is most often a fluid thing, more akin to a dancer than a stone: Light on its feet, evolving moving leaping reflexively ,syncing up to each variation of the rhythm of the moment, hour or eon without much thought as to how or why, its lack of self-reflection making it more pleasurable or pretty but no closer by any means to something one can put their weight into without falling over or coming apart. Knowledge and opinion are not the same thing.
Truth is closest without chorus or metronome. Maybe all we’ll every truly know of it is what we set free from inside ourselves.
In creating this body of work, I’ve sought to push over barriers – including my own. I’ve sought to de-amplify.
– Chris Mars, May 2026
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ABOUT CHRIS MARS
Chris Mars was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1961, the youngest of seven children. When Mars was five years old, his eldest brother, Joe, was institutionalized for Schizophrenia. Memories of the archaic institution, society’s prejudgment, medical anonymity and famial shame had a profound impact on the young Mars, setting him on a life path of creative expression seeking to “…free the oppressed; to champion the persecuted, and the submissive; to liberate through revelation the actualized Self in those proposed by some to have no self at all.”
Mars’s work has exhibited in museums worldwide including Halle St. Pierre (Paris), Casa Dell’Architettura/Acquario (Rome), Museum of Modern Art (New York), Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (CA), Laguna Art Museum (CA), Ruby Green Contemporary Art Space (TN), Grand Central Art Center (CA), Haas Fine Arts Center (WI), Art Center South Florida (Miami), Ft. Wayne Museum of Art (IN) and Louisville Visual Arts (KY), as well as American Visionary Art Museum (MD), Longview Museum of Fine Arts (TX), Museum of Fine Arts Florida State University (FL), Minnesota History Center (St. Paul), Mesa Contemporary Arts (AZ), The Tweed Museum of Art (MN), Weisman Art Museum (MN) and Minneapolis Institute of Art (MN), each of which hold Mars’s work in the permanent collection.
Additionally an accomplished filmmaker, Mars’ work has screened at numerous prestigious festivals worldwide including Sundance, SXSW, Jerusalem International, Denver Starz, Palm Springs Shortfest and many more.
As founding member of the seminal Minneapolis band The Replacements, Mars has also been a Grammy nominee. Subsequent to his departure from the band, Mars released five acclaimed solo albums before dedicating himself full time to visual art. Mars’s latest recording, “The Average Album”, serves as a fundraiser for Mutt Mutt Engine, the dog rescue Mars founded with his wife Sally Mars.
Mars has released two monographs featuring his paintings: 2008’s “Tolerance” and 2025’s “7:42pm”.
