The Thousands

Ben Barretto is all over it. He’s all over art honours, all over fancy French art residencies, all over the stage at Sugar Mountain Festival with Sun Araw. He’s all over Perth, too – we wrote about his show Wail Songs at the Museum of Natural Mystery in September and just over a month later here we are again, psyched for another Baretto home-run at OK Gallery.

We nearly lost Perth-born Barretto to Sydney, mind you – he spent a bit of time there working in the art department of a schmick fashion label, and growing a long beard. Luckily for us he came home last year, celebrating his return with Fan Band (a kick-ass show where he hooked up guitars and an electric piano to the 180-degree circumference of several fans), before helping Pond out with the cover of their 7”. He also shaved off his beard.

The most readily recognisable aspect of Barretto’s practice to date, the ‘assisted’ painting performative works, continue to expand into new territory – in Wail Songs, Barretto’s signature apparatus were used to compose sound, not paint, works. As the title would suggest, See Sounds will sit somewhere between – and beyond – painting and performance.