John Santerineross is an American photographer with a background in ceramics and painting. He is considered to be a "neo-symbolist", an artist that continues or reinterprets the 19th century art movement Symbolism. Like its predecessor, neo-symbolism focuses on the spiritual, the subconscious, and dreams. Santerineross’ unique style and content has inspired an entire new generation of artists; his complex aesthetic is derived from a combination of his exposure to Catholicism and Santeria and by his fascination with Greek mythology, world religions and iconography.

Born in 1955 in New York City, he lived most of this life in the north east and now works out of Athens, Georgia. He is known for his dark, erotic images and has been shown both nationally and internationally, from the Seattle Erotic Arts Festival to the Galleria de-Arte Moderna Contemporanea in Bondeno, Italy. His largest New York City show took place at KFMK Gallery in June 2006 showing 22 of his 28” x 32” photographic images. In 2010 he showed at Le Cabinet des Curieux in Paris, France and in Mondo Bizzarro Gallery in Rome Italy. John’s latest solo exhibition at Jinbochogarou Gallery in Tokyo, Japan features 24 of his images , making it his largest solo exhibition to date.

Throughout John’s artistic career, his refusal to be limited by any one medium has lead him to master multiple artistic disciplines; he has been a ceramist, sculptor, painter, and mixed media artist. He has recently delved into the world of moving images and has already directed several short art films. Currently, Santerineross is in the preproduction phase of an adaptation of an avante-garde short story entitled “Ningyoushi”.

John Santerineross’ artistic career is based on commitment, integrity, passion and dedication. He is an artist who does not like to be classified or categorized and prefers to let the viewer decide and define. This open-ness has allowed viewers to interpret his work in every manner imaginable. Hailed “the world’s leading Neo-symbolist artist” by PROFIFOTO, Germanys leading photography magazine, John has also been called an “artistic assassin who wants to artistically assassinate Christianity, especially Catholicism” in Bill Donohue’s newest book “Secular Sabotage: How Liberals Are Destroying Religion and Culture in America”, in which Santerineross is mentioned along with several other groundbreaking artists including Andres Serrano, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Cindy Sherman.

Despite the wide range of responses to his art, John never elucidates his imagery for fear of limiting viewers’ personal interpretation. He is influenced by the early symbolists’ belief that “the creation of a mood is as important as the transmission of information; (it must also) seek to engage the entire mind and personality of the viewer by appealing to the viewer’s emotions and unconscious mind, as well as to their intellect”.

Désiré project
This is an experimental project I have been working on for a few months. It all started with me archiving older images, filing them and generally organizing all the images I have taken over the past almost 20 years.
Reviewing all of these images it occurred to me that some of the images I decided not to use because of to much accidental camera shake or controlled blur gone astray had very strong compositional value to them.

THESE ARE NOT CREATED IN PHOTOSHOP!
At the same time I had been researching historical Albumen printing process, and an idea came to me.
I started with creating a digital negative ala Dan Burkholder, who I had the pleasure to work with back in 1996.
After creating the negative and outputting via Lightjet on clear film. I sent to NYC to a lab I knew still did alternative processes.  The first result, created a digital negative of virtually any size.