John Perretti: Of Tunnels, Time and Tumult

• Sat, Aug 2, 2025 - Sat, Sep 13, 2025  9am - 5pm On view
• Saturday, Aug 9, 2025  5:30pm - 8:30pm Opening Reception

Renowned artist, martial arts innovator, and storyteller John Perretti presents his most expansive—and final—exhibition, Of Tunnels, Time and  Tumult, at the Bay 100 Gallery at The Silos at Sawyer Yards in Houston, Texas. Marking his 69th year of life, this powerful and immersive show features over 50 works, including  large-scale paintings and sculptural installations, each offering a raw, layered journey through  myth, memory, combat, and cosmic reflection. 

Perretti, a cultural shape-shifter equally known for coining the term “Mixed Martial Arts” as for his deeply conceptual artworks, draws on a lifetime of experience spanning the battlefield of the ring and the quiet discipline of the studio. His work fuses classical draftsmanship with emotive  abstraction, often inspired by historical trauma, poetic memory, sexuality, and the frailty of human  perception. 

"Of Tunnels, Time and Tumult" invites viewers into a world where angelic light collides with trench  warfare, where Sumerian myth whispers through elliptical color fields, and where a rabbit—drawn  from his son's childhood painting—finds itself surrounded by knives in both innocence and peril. It is a body of work that is as vulnerable as it is unflinching. 

“This is the show of my life,” says Perretti. “I want the audience to feel the time I’ve lived, the tunnels  I’ve traveled through, and the tumult I’ve never stopped documenting; I want them to feel as if I had  put my hands on them.” 

This final exhibition presents a culmination of themes that have shaped Perretti’s creative evolution:  violence and grace, truth and distortion, collapse and transcendence. Works range from poignant  graphite studies done in youth to massive oil paintings echoing Turner’s turbulent skies, Kiefer’s  historical ghosts, and Twombly’s chaotic lyricism. The sculptures—crafted from black walnut,  iron, and hybrid materials—evoke sacred architecture, battlefield debris, and future relics.

About the Artist: John Perretti is a multidisciplinary artist, educator, writer, and a mixed martial arts pioneer. His  work has been exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, and Houston. A former professor at the School of Visual Arts and a member of the Screen Actors Guild, Perretti is also the founder of Tao Jutsu Do  (founded 1974) and a co-creator of Extreme Fighting. He is the author of The Origin of a Species and the Mixed Martial Arts and has been inducted into the Martial Arts Hall of Fame as a Living Legend. His working studio is C255 at Winter Street Studios.

Featured Artwork: Precession, Acrylic on Wood