"King of Horror"

King of Horror by John-Mark Gleadow is a darkly captivating tribute to the world’s most iconic master of suspense. Using his renowned bookshelf motif, Gleadow assembles a row of “book spines” inspired by classic horror literature—most notably the works of Stephen King—rendered with his signature hyper-real detail. Each spine feels tangible and timeworn, evoking nights spent lost in chilling stories, eerie atmospheres, and unforgettable characters.

Rich shadows, bold typography, and atmospheric tones give the piece a moody, cinematic quality. While unmistakably a nod to the horror genre, King of Horror maintains Gleadow’s refined sense of composition and craftsmanship, making it both striking and sophisticated. Perfect for home libraries, media rooms, or collectors who appreciate the darker side of storytelling, this piece pays homage to the thrill, tension, and imagination that have shaped modern horror.

Born in 1976, John-Mark Gleadow had already achieved gallery representation by the time he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Delaware in 1999. Renowned for his skill as a draftsman and ability for creating hyper realistic oil paintings, he has gone on to garner various awards, solo shows and grants and has been met with commercial success in the numerous galleries carrying his work from coast to coast in the United States and beyond.

Early influences on the young artist were Rene Magritte, Salvador Dali and VerMeer. “I fell in love with the beauty of their imagery and have always been in awe of their amazing gift for depicting reality, or their version of it. My desire is that my abilities would be used for creating works that are beautiful and that, when viewed as a whole, convince the viewer not only that what they’re seeing is real but that there’s truth in it. For that reason I find strict photorealism a somewhat unsatisfying undertaking.”

Beginning with still lifes, John-Mark’s paintings soon came to have portraiture as their backbone. With his mastery of the medium his trademark use of vibrant colors has come to the fore – an element of his work made the more fascinating due to his having to cope with his own colorblindness. His most recent series has fused the centuries old theme of painting book spines with his love of doing figurative work and has allowed him to broaden the thematic horizons of his paintings. “The wonderful thing about working in this vain is how limitless the subject matter can be and how it makes for a logical way of juxtaposing entirely different topics, producing a work of art that’s beautiful as a whole, not just aesthetically, but thematically as well.”