An Internal Perspective – Philip Miller

John Santerineross.

One cannot absorb the beauty of a Santerineross piece at a glance, as captivating as that one glance may be. One doesn’t purchase a Santerineross to balance the décor of a room, though once hung, the piece may cause you to linger in that room more than any other. This art ensnares you through a sensual image then immerses you in a visceral waltz of imagery, both real and fantastic. Half of the emotion and experience you will encounter are part of the art; the other half will come from inside you. John Santerineross has a rare talent, weaving complex compositions that unravel like good mystery novels, engaging a viewer’s involuntary instinct to see how things are going to turn out.

Born in the Bronx, John was an only child, raised by his mother. He was a high school track prodigy, but torn ligaments in his leg forced him out of the sport. To replace his love of competitive running, John discovered his artistic ability. The diversion of his focus on art was propitious, earning him a full scholarship to Rutgers University.

For ten years, John plied his skills as a ceramist to create decorative abstractions, which now hang in many prestigious corporate headquarters. When the medium of clay imposed the restriction of size that John wasn’t happy with, he turned to painting, incorporating photographs cut from magazines and newspapers. After two years, he grew tired of using other people’s photographed images and began creating his own. The work you see now is a modest reflection of his success in the last ten years, centering on the photographic image.

John has a lot to say and he takes advantage of every available opportunity for elaboration. The compositions in his photography utilize narrative imagery, blending symbolism of ancient and modern cultures, sharply contrasting textures, dramatic light, eroticism and religious iconography.

Though some have labeled him a "fetish" photographer," John does not consider himself a fetish artist, and an honest appraisal sustains this claim. The bondage and fetish elements are not central, but rather integral components of greater, more universal messages. Bondage, vulnerability and confinement are metaphoric tools, perhaps suggestive of the fragility of humanity in its environment. The protagonist in his visual tales pose among rough-hewn wooden walls, dilapidated machinery, the chassis of broken electronics, wire mesh cages and battered furniture. Other props include wine chalices, crucifixes, rainbows of stars, crescent moons and lighting bolts, all tokens of the symbolism of the ancient mythology referred to in the works. His lighting is dark, dramatic, foreboding.

In contrast with his ceramic abstracts, his sexually and spiritually-themed images are receiving a cooler reception from the gallery owners who were once only too happy to hawk his previous, less polemic work. They fear the images may be too stark for their patrons’ delicate palate, underestimating their capacity to appreciate honest humanism. To be commercially acceptable, images containing religious symbolism, nudity, and sexuality must adhere to the rules of plausible deniability. Though we may feel distrust, doubt or even scorn for religion, religious iconography in art may only be portrayed as exalted and virtuous. Nudes may be sensual, but must be essential chaste forms, appreciated only for purity of line and interplay of light and shadow. All the lust in our hearts must be denied or at least merely alluded to, and even then never vividly. It isn’t the presence of sexuality and religion in his work that frightens them, it is the way they are presented.

Women in his work are presented without apology for their bodies or their sexuality. His poses are often graphic, but never exploitative. Just as the vagina is given no more emphasis in the composition than any other part of the body, it is neither shyly hidden by drapery nor demurely concealed through clever posing or discrete camera angles. If eroticism is intended as part of a piece (John’s work is rarely of a singular theme), it is achieved through many elements in the composition. John never sinks to pornographic display; he has far too much respect for the erotic to demean it. He handles feminine eroticism with keen sensitivity to women’s experiences. She isn’t portrayed as selling, projecting or negating. She is within her sexuality, feeling and reacting to what is going on inside her. She is a whole person, enjoying the voluptuous and wrestling with the demons it creates. I do not single out John’s use of female images, intentionally excluding male images. Until recently the only male appearing in his work was the artist himself. In these, as well as those images including women, the poses are frank and naturally powerful.

True, what John says in his work may make us uneasy. His statements turn us inward, beckoning us to candidly respond to and converse with parts of ourselves considered outside the realm of polite conversation. He is speaking to the universal, yet highly personal, corners of our psyches; to places where gods split the heavens to humble us. He speaks to the places inside of us where we moan, writhe, grin, giggle and scream with wide eyes. He invites us to Rorschach towards our own conclusions, to fuse our psychic input with his, to free our fantasies and join him in a waltz of expression.

Come and see where his vision takes you.