Chris Mars is a contemporary abstract figural painter whose focus is on revealing the inner beauty of those society "labels" as monsters. According to his artist statement, this body of work is largely inspired by his older brother Joe, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was sixteen years old. As a child, Chris met face to face with the mental institutions his brother was frequently whisked away to and it profoundly influenced him to change the way people perceive those with mental illnesses. From that point on, his work attempted to show the ill as beautiful rather than monsters. For the most part, his artwork certainly reflects this goal.
While the physical artwork may not appeal to standard conventions of beauty, the concept is clear and evident within each composition. He states: " My work is about looking beyond the outer to the inner, and finding with this the true definition of Beauty - which is beyond form." This is particularly what I find so fascinating about his art. It is fundamentally personal, yet at the same time, it speaks universally.His website may be found here.
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