The Many Faces of Jon Adelung
Jon Adelung
January 2nd - 31st, 2024
The Many Faces of Jon Adelung is a solo exhibition by Jon Adelung presented by The Artifice in Atlanta, GA.
Through acrylic and spray-painted portraits, figures, and imagined environments, Adelung introduces a cast of strange inhabitants drawn from an evolving world of his own construction.
Moving between humor, fantasy, and unease, the exhibition uses the face as a starting point for exploring character, identity, and the stories that emerge through world-building.
John Adelung
The Many Faces of Jon Adelung presents a population from somewhere else.
Working primarily in acrylic and spray paint, Jon Adelung builds a vivid cast of figures through exaggerated faces, distorted bodies, multiple eyes, exposed teeth, intense color, and dark atmospheric spaces. Some appear alone as portraits; others gather into groups, participate in rituals, or occupy larger imagined environments. Repeated across the exhibition, these figures begin to feel less like isolated inventions and more like inhabitants of a shared world.
Adelung's paintings move freely between the humorous, grotesque, anxious, and fantastical. A face can be playful and unsettling at the same time. Human features remain recognizable but are continually rearranged—eyes multiply or shift position, mouths distort, colors detach from natural appearance, and individual identities emerge through deviation rather than realism.
Behind these characters is an interest in world-building and invented lore. Works such as The City, Leader of the Tribe, Ritual, and the exhibition's many portraits suggest fragments of a place whose larger history remains mostly outside the frame. The viewer encounters its inhabitants without being given a complete explanation of who they are or how their world operates.
The Many Faces of Jon Adelung gathers those fragments into a single exhibition: a collection of characters, creatures, roles, and environments that together offer a glimpse into an imagined universe still being constructed.
The City
Acrylic and spray paint on canvas
36 x 36 in / 91.4 x 91.4 cm
$500
The City
Acrylic and spray paint on canvas
36 x 36 in / 91.4 x 91.4 cm
$500
The City
Acrylic and spray paint on canvas
36 x 36 in / 91.4 x 91.4 cm
$500
The Leader of the Tribe
Acrylic and spray paint on canvas
48 x 36 in / 121.9 x 91.4 cm
$450
The Many Faces of Jon Adelung
Acrylic and spray paint on canvas
36 x 36 in / 91.4 x 91.4 cm
$400
The Dancer of Light and Shadow
Acrylic and spray paint on canvas
15 x 30 in / 38.1 x 76.2 cm
$150
Warrior
Acrylic and spray paint on canvas
15 x 30 in / 38.1 x 76.2 cm
$150
Sky Worms
Acrylic and spray paint on canvas
36 x 36 in / 91.4 x 91.4 cm
$250
Ritual
Acrylic and spray paint on canvas
48 x 36 in / 121.9 x 91.4 cm
$400
Shadow Man
Acrylic on canvas
36 x 48 in / 91.4 x 121.9 cm
$200
Six Eyed Jimmy
Acrylic and spray paint on canvas
36 x 48 in / 91.4 x 121.9 cm
$400
Pizuzu
Acrylic on canvas
16 x 20 in / 40.6 x 50.8 cm
$80
Blue Devil Angel
Acrylic on canvas
16 x 20 in / 40.6 x 50.8 cm
$200
Pale Pain
Acrylic on canvas
16 x 20 in / 40.6 x 50.8 cm
$200
Faces (Faces 01)
Acrylic on canvas
16 x 20 in / 40.6 x 50.8 cm
$150
Butterflies
Acrylic on canvas
16 x 20 in / 40.6 x 50.8 cm
$200
Neon Demon
Acrylic on canvas
16 x 20 in / 40.6 x 50.8 cm
$200
Calderon of Power
Acrylic on canvas
16 x 20 in / 40.6 x 50.8 cm
$200
Faces (Faces 02)
Acrylic on canvas
16 x 20 in / 40.6 x 50.8 cm
$200
Peer Pressure
Acrylic on canvas
16 x 20 in / 40.6 x 50.8 cm
$200
Anxiety and Depression
Acrylic on canvas
16 x 20 in / 40.6 x 50.8 cm
$200
King of the Rainbow
Acrylic and spray paint on canvas
16 x 20 in / 40.6 x 50.8 cm
$450
Passenger
Acrylic on canvas
16 x 20 in / 40.6 x 50.8 cm
$150
Faces (Faces 03)
Acrylic on canvas
16 x 20 in / 40.6 x 50.8 cm
$200
John Goblikon
Acrylic on canvas
16 x 20 in / 40.6 x 50.8 cm
$250
The Prince Is Gone
Acrylic on canvas
16 x 20 in / 40.6 x 50.8 cm
$100
Trapped In the Shadows
Acrylic on canvas
16 x 20 in / 40.6 x 50.8 cm
$200
The Wizard of the Rainbow
Acrylic and spray paint on canvas
16 x 20 in / 40.6 x 50.8 cm
$100
Comfort In This Time of Pain
Acrylic on canvas
24 x 30 in / 61 x 76.2 cm
$300
Into My Eyes You Fall
Acrylic on canvas
24 x 30 in / 61 x 76.2 cm
$250
The Ritual
Acrylic on canvas
40 x 30 in / 101.6 x 76.2 cm
$300
The Torch's Carrier
Acrylic and spray paint on canvas
14 x 14 in / 35.5 x 35.5 cm
$60
1975
Acrylic and spray paint on canvas
14 x 14 in / 35.5 x 35.5 cm
$60
Demon of the Ragtime Band
Acrylic and spray paint on canvas
14 x 14 in / 35.5 x 35.5 cm
$60
Parasite
Acrylic and spray paint on canvas
14 x 14 in / 35.5 x 35.5 cm
$100
Vampire
Acrylic on canvas
9 x 12 in / 22.8 x 30.5 cm
$60
Self Portrait
Acrylic on canvas
8 x 10 in / 20.3 x 25.4 cm
$100
Daddy O
Acrylic on canvas
8 x 10 in / 20.3 x 25.4 cm
$85