“I have nostalgia for the years before I was born… From my perspective, America at that time conveyed a tone of hope and prosperity. People had pride in their work and pride in our country.” A graduate of Parsons School of Design in New York, artist Robert Mars begins his creative process by preparing the surface with multiple layers of brown paper to define the edges and delineate the background planes of color. He then alternates layers of paint and vintage paper ephemera, sanding away portions of the layers as he works, revealing the desired amounts of under-painting with the overall intention to provide the viewer with a muted window into America’s past. Chronicling this fascination with 1950s and 60s iconography, Mars has produced a body of artwork from his studio in New York that celebrates the commonplace objects and icons of an America long past in a thoroughly modern and exquisitely constructed manner. His eye for a distinct facet of American history is impeccable. His ability to manipulate the color and wordplay of vintage printed material has earned him reference with the likes of Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, and Richard Diebenkorn, among other masters from the School of Pop.Mars’ artwork chronicles an evolving fascination with the Golden Age of American popular culture and celebrates the icons of the 1950s and 60s by taking inspiration from this culture long past. By applying a rich color palette and tongue-in-cheek attitude, Mars’ paintings evoke a vintage quality of design and pay homage to the idealized age of growth and hopefulness prevalent in the USA at the end of the Depression. A time before the internet and mobile technology, where information was not instantly available to millions. There was no such thing as instant internet celebrities. Instead, people lived with the myth of the unique, untouchable, and unforgettable personalities of Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean, Audrey Hepburn, and Elvis Presley.His artwork is exhibited worldwide, including museum collections in Munich, Tokyo, Amsterdam, London, Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Laguna Beach, Atlanta, Aspen, and Naples.