John Perretti born August 10, 1956, began drawing at age two to become the youngest faculty member of The School of Visual Arts at twenty-four where he taught for ten years. He was considered “the most heroic painter SVA ever produced”. His painting and sculpture remain today unafraid of historical darkness, his adoption of skulls, living dangerously, the underworld, and the lifelong love of brushes and knives. Perretti has moved to Houston from Japan to continue to create images unlike any other. His next one-man show will open at The Silos August 9, 2025.
A history (his story) of past and present sculpture.
As is the interior of sacred Shinto shrines, the hidden is held from view within the most precious wooden constructions. Perretti has held megalithic scale sculptures in hand since the late 1970s. A one man show at 77 Green Street, NYC entitled, “Three Million Years of Evidence” spoke with hewn artifacts about our history being a mis-told tale. As Joseph Beuys lied about his past, Perretti’s new truths seem as foreboding, childlike, warlike, weathered, unfiltered, and not limited to land. His newest sculptures stand directly in concert with the large paintings in ballasted bookendedness. As Lichtenstein unveiled three-dimensional sculptures so similar to his past paintings, Perretti’s work may be now seen as through under skirted lace, only obscured to halt the locomotion of the viewer.
