Born Joseph Henry Marchesseault Jr. on August 13th of 1963 in Worcester, Massachusetts, Joey was drawing as far back as he can remember; whether it was learning via the over-the-top style of famous sixties hot rod artist Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, or capturing the adventures of his favorite sports heroes. As a budding high school artist, Mars was heavily influenced simultaneously by the surreal art of Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali; and MAD Magazine mainstays Sergio Aragones, Basil Wolverton and Don Martin. Instrumental underground comic artists Rick Griffin and Robert Williams informed his style as well, and R. Crumb's comics and 60's rock album covers gave Mars the direction in which to take his artwork.

That direction led him from high school to the Vesper George School of Art in Boston, a private institution of only 70 students, then on to the Art Institute of Boston. Describing himself as an "art school dropout," Joey worked a few odd jobs in the mid-1980's before beginning a lengthy collaboration with a Boston-area rock show promoter. With a strong love of rock art, and the desire "to be part of the underground scene," Mars originally worked without compensation on posters, ads and murals for bands and Boston clubs as Bunratty's (Local 186), The Rat, Green Street Station, and the Channel. The collaboration produced a cornerstone deal for Mars in the summer of 1991, illustrating and lettering the posters for the Priviet Vodka Discovery Series, a summer long series, one show a week, six bands a night at Citi Club (now Avalon) the posters were printed full page in the Boston Phoenix each week. These shows featured such up-and-coming national acts as Pearl Jam, The Lemonheads, Buffalo Tom, The Mighty, Mighty Bosstones. During this time, Mars became affiliated with the Worcester Artists Group (WAG), a non-profit artist cooperative occupying 10,000 square feet of renovated factory space in Worcester Massachusetts. While there Mars worked in a studio environment, surrounded by twelve fellow painters, sculptors and performance artists. He started as a studio member, and eventually became the WAG president in 1991. Mars developed a knack for business (booking and promoting rock and jazz bands, gallery exhibits, performance art and other art experiences), and found that the group provided him with "a sense of belonging, a home." Mars further credits the WAG experience as the one which helped to expand his artwork into the fine art field. Being involved in 2 gallery shows a month for three years opened his eyes to the world of alternative and mainstream gallery life.  Mars participated in several group gallery exhibits while continuing to make in roads into the pop art and concert poster world.  .  In January of '92, feeling he had a solid portfolio, including work from the critically acclaimed Priviet Series, Mars decided to shop his art around to national pop art licensing companies. This led to a deal producing t-shirt art for pop culture wear manufacturer Liquid Blue (famous for their line of shirts and rock paraphernalia). Initially, under a work-for-hire agreement with Liquid Blue, Mars decided he "wanted to make royalties," for his artwork, and he was able to hammer out a licensing agreement with Liquid Blue for his images. The result of this agreement was a popular line of Joey Mars t-shirts, posters. Stickers, pins and patches which were wholesaled to stores world-wide.  Mars art started appearing in all corners of the globe.  “People were coming back from vacations from places as far away as England, Mexico, New Zealand and Fiji and telling me they saw my shirts in stores.  Columbia Records picked up a design and sold it through their direct mail catalogue.  It opened a lot of doors.” Mars says of the line.

The Liquid Blue licensing arrangement led to a deal with Great Entertainment Merchandise, Inc. (GEM, a dividion of PolyGram Diversified) for an additional line of shirts. Mars also has licensed artwork to Net Sales, Chartpak, Raven Images, Orion Entertainment Inc. and Not Fade Away, Inc..

Mars produced the logo for WBCN's 25th anniversary which was issued on a plethora of promotional items from key chains to frisbees.  Former WBCN disc jockey Mark Parenteau wore Mars' ZidZoi t-shirt to a party where Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler freaked out over the design. Tyler's enthusiasm for Mars' artwork spread to the band and they licensed a Joey Mars image for a shirt to be sold (through Giant Merchandising) during the group's massive "Get a Grip" tour.  In 1996 Joey Mars licensed three images to Grateful Dead merchandising to be used on stickers.  Mars was also asked to produce artwork for a shirt for the K-2 Ski Corporation. The shirt was sold in ski shops and touted the company's mohawk-sporting extreme skier, the outrageous Glen Plake.   In the late 90’s Joey began to travel to Asia to develop products with a friend and business partner Ronny Hazel of Shop Therapy.  “ We developed a line of Hemp products including clothing and nutritional drinks.  Mars continues to work on concert posters for Tea Party Concerts and has created the print ads for WFNX 101.7 and The Boston Phoenix’s Best Music Poll Street Festival in 2004,05, and 06. 

            With the onset of the new millennium Mars’s focus on the fine arts world has continued to grow.  Joey Mars has exhibited in three solo exhibitions since 2004 in Cambridge, Provincetown and Worcester Massachusetts. He has been a featured artist for several years in Provincetown galleries. In the summer of 2004 in between galleries he opened his own gallery in down town Provincetown. “ Having my own gallery was a wonderful experience.  I met so many great people.  But the strain and grind of operating a retail location in a resort town was enormous.  I was offered an opportunity as a featured artist in a high quality gallery and I jumped at it!  The relationship has been wonderful.”  Mars is currently represented by Sarah Jessica Fine Arts in Provincetown and Black Bird Gallery in Chatham.   Joey Mars currently resides and works on Cape Cod.