In this new work, Tony Berlant continues to explore his fascination with the desert as subject and metaphor, turning to visions of the arid landscape at night. The exhibition includes nocturne scenes and a series of small-scale works of night-blooming cactus orchids. Berlant uses found and fabricated printed tin, which he cuts, assembles and affixes to wood panels, with steel brads. Composing each work from numerous fragments of metal, he manipulates the material with the same degree of freedom as paint on canvas.

Berlant studied at UCLA, where he received his MA and MFA, and went on to teach in the University’s art department. He received early recognition in 1960, when Clement Greenberg selected one of his paintings for inclusion in an exhibition of LA-area artists at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. His work is represented in many private and public collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Major public commissions include Fox Network Center, Los Angeles; San Francisco Airport, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Mayo Clinic, and Target Corporation, Minneapolis.