Tony
Berlant has
been creating his vivid metal collages since the early 1960s. Having
been called "a painter who works with metal (and/or) a sculptor who creates
with color, mark, and line. . .", Berlant combines a lyrical intensity
with a fascination of surface. Metal TV trays, cookie tins, wastebaskets,
etc., are cut up and transformed by Berlant into a complex palette from
which color and pattern are selected as he "paints" his visions. Using
steel brads to hold down the metal fragments, Berlant juxtaposes figuration
with abstraction in quilt- like patterned compositions.