Peter Spooner, Curator, Tweed Museum of Art, University of Minnesota Duluth

Gutsy in the most visceral way and moral in the highest sense of the word, Chris Mars holds nothing back in his painfully true illustrations of Monsters and Angels. These works require us to walk, single file and for as long as we can tolerate it, along the skinny path between terror and beauty. Well versed in the terrible sublime, Mars has disciplined himself to look hard at the slippage of worlds between sanity and insanity, fear and acceptance, and challenges us to do no less. The paintings, drawings and animations should come labeled "DANGER: EXTREME SELF-REFLECTION REQUIRED."

Tom Hazelmyer, OX-OP/AmRep--HAZE XXL

Chris Mars occupies two coveted realms in the art world. Being a consummate artist's artist, he's become a focal point and benchmark for legions of established and upcoming talent in the art world. Also, despite pushing illustrative work into the extremes of the surreal and abstract, he's also tapped into a visceral vein that draws in the erudite as well as the common man with little time for art theory. An envious position to straddle. Few achieve it, let alone with the pure intensity and uncompromising aesthetic ideals. Bottom line, whether his art is placed in the lofty museum halls of fine art, or in the back alley underground gallery, you'll be able to tell where Mars's work is hanging by seeing where the crowd is gathered in the room.