War Within, So Without and Other Works by Jillian Adel
War Within, So Without
24x30” oil on canvas. 2026
Mars and Saturn collide under the sign of the warrior, Aries, and bombs drop on nations without my consent. I can't hear the deafening blasts or smell the burning buildings, but my body knows—somehow. The first sign of the zodiac speaks of newness, the Divine spark, but the beginning does not feel like the hopeful burst of greenery and florals commonly associated with the Spring. Instead, there is an impossible twisting of my flesh as it acts as both a fortress and a primordial lab, transforming violence witnessed through senses into God—by knowing it is God, and so am I. The technology of my skin taking over, becoming what it needs to be in order to evolve this moment, for all. But first, for me.
War Within, So Withoutis a meditation on war, my body and God. And my experience of living as an American in protest to the illegal genocides my country commits in my name, without my permission. It was created during the Mars-Saturn conjunction in Aries. And depicts the natural intelligence and strength my body has to not only protect itself, but to alchemize the moment into a prayer of primordial eroticism—my holy vessel connecting Me to all things, all things to Me. As above, so below. War within, so without.
Divine Fire, Stage 1 & Stage 2
5x7” oil on canvas, 2026
Divine Fire, Stage 1 & Stage 2 shows the process of alchemical fire entering and expanding into places of myself that have stayed too small for too long. And what it feels like to take a single step into these places and explore.
Mars in Pisces
11x14” oil on canvas. 2026.
the deep discomfort i feel for my hips in all their
depression shapes become a form on the page of the
archiving of this moment, and somehow i am saved by it.
Emergence
16x20” Charcoal, acrylic and pastel on paper. 2026.
I peeked into the corners of myself to see what I could find.
Emerging from my subconscious or my own mind.
“Emergence” walks down a hallway of self, exploring what resides there. Who we are when we drop the facade of conscious self and allow our boundaries of identity to be permeable?
Jillian Adel is a Los Angeles-based multidisciplinary artist, mystic, metalsmith and anarchist. She explores the intersection of the archetypal and the intimately personal through ritual as a means of creative liberation. Her work with death, nature, and the erotic facilitate integration of shadow for a more equitable collective. She is the In-House Esoteric Counselor at the radical community space, The WuuM, where she uses astrology, tarot and archetypal theory to facilitate deprogramming from capitalism and other oppressive systems and also runs an award-winning commercial art studio, Studio of Earthly Delights.
