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image The PostModern Art of John H. De Moss The Post Modern Art of John H. De Moss page


My painting style has been described over the years as California Illusionism, Magic Realism, Surrealism, Symbolism or Visionary art.

I come out of an academic background in anthropology and philosophy. If I had to choose a label for my art I would prefer the term "PostModern Symbolism" or maybe "neosymbolism". My art is studded with references to writers, philosophers, and poets. A short paper on my concepts of PostModern Symbolism may be accessed here.


The postmodern period reflects a "dissolution of the value of the new. This is the meaning of the post-modern, to the degree in which it cannot be reduced to a mere fact of cultural fashion. From architecture to the novel to poetry to the figurative arts, the post-modern displays, as its most common and most imposing trait, an effort to free itself from the logic of overcoming, development, and innovation."

Gianni Vattimo,   The End of Modernity

The qualities which all true Symbolists "in some measure claim as their own include: deliberate ambiguity; hermeticism; the feeling for the [archetypal] symbol as a catalyst (something which, while itself remaining unchanged, generates a reaction in the psyche); the notion that art exists alongside the real world rather than in the midst of it; and the preference for synthesis as opposed to analysis. Synthesis is a particularly important Symbolist concept; it involves an effort to combine elements found in the real world, or even borrowed from other works of art, to produce a seperate, different, and certainly self-sufficient reality"

Edward Lucie-Smith,   Symbolist Art

Reproductions of my works of various sorts are available through another web site. Please use the "prints" link to go to that site.

Original paintings that have not been sold have a "inquire by email" tag.