Peter Mars has been the leader of Chicago’s Pop Movement for the past 20 years. Combining avant-garde innovation with a deep Pop Art sensibility, Mars fuses and confuses the traditional distinctions between high culture and low art. The artist’s sensibilities fall somewhere between Dada and Pop, “In that area where nonsense and popular culture so frequently meet.”

Using the joy and nostalgia that can be found in everyday objects, Mars explores American pop culture, the passage of time, and the icons that each period adopts as its own. Here’s an excerpt from an interview conducted with Mr. Mars for Art Nouveau Magazine’s Summer Issue “Super Pop.”

An-Mag.com: Describe your work to someone who has never seen it?

Peter Mars: My art is about things we see in everyday life. wallpaper, packets of ketchup, tv commercials, billboards.

An-Mag.com: How has pop culture influenced your work?

PM: Yes. Global Popular Culture is exploding. Pop is everywhere. I’m a product of that environment.

An-Mag.com: Would you consider Andy Warhol an influence on your work?

PM: Warhol broke down a lot of pre-conceived barriers against Pop Art itself. So I’m gratefully to Warhol. I’ve always loved Pop Art both before and after Warhol, like Stuart Davis, Rauchenberg, Rosenquist, John Stango.

An-Mag.com: Tell me about the technique of creating your works?

PM: The technique I use is called Serigraph, or Silkscreen, which is a very ancient technique, and really a magical tool. Everything for this is hand made. And involves no use of machines. The Silkscreen is a finely-meshed fabric made of industrial grade silk, that is stretched tightly across redwood crossbars. You can think of it as being like a window screen almost. The Silk is about the consistency of a ladies silk stocking but heavier and more durable fabric specifically made for silkscreen printmakers, next I stretch the silk within a frame.

Then by coating the silk with photopolymers, the design is chemically transferred onto the silk. Areas that are blocked out will allow no printer’s ink to pass through the mesh, in contrast, open areas on the silkscreen allow ink to pass through, and the print to form. Pulling these kind of prints is like making magic to watch.

An-Mag.com: Is there anything else you’d like to mention on the theme of Pop Art & Neo-Pop art?

PM: No but I love your word “Super Pop,”  because Pop, Neo-Pop, and what we call Avant Pop, we are all saying only that American Pop Art is alive and well. The shear volume of images from popular culture that all of us view every single day, is surely fertile ground for artists. Pop is a vibrant art scene.