Tomato season is all year for Mike Dudkin Berlant and people driving in the 400 block of Union.

Berlant, 29, created the giant tomato mounted to the top of his two-story studio on Washburn’s Escape Alley between Union and Monroe. “When I first did that tomato they were having a drive-through art show at Marshall Arts,” he said. “It’s basically quarter-inch bar (steel) all bent up and welded together and then heat shrunk plastic all over it.”

Berlant built the tomato two years ago. “The plastic has deteriorated ’cause it was a quick thing. Now it’s rusting through. It’s collapsing. So, it’s a rotten tomato now.”

His mural, “Population Negative II,” on the side of a building in front of his studio, has been the backdrop for fashion photography and at least one rap video.

“Some people think of this as graffiti alley. People from out of town walk through it quite often. They think it’s some art community. I’m like, ‘It’s mostly me.’ ”

Born in Moscow, Berlant began drawing sailboats and spaceships when he was four. He moved to Memphis with his parents when he was 11. He attended Mt. Pisgah Elementary School and Houston High School. “I didn’t really have a good social life. I wore black. I was one of those angry looking kids walking around.”

On his 18th birthday, Berlant dropped out of high school and got a job making bagels. “I got into partying, all that kind of stuff. I went to raves.”

His mom encouraged him to do something with his life, so Berlant enrolled at Memphis College of Art. One of his works was a bronze bust of a child with an amputated jaw. “It was a holdover from gory, gruesome stuff I used to draw in high school.”

He transferred to the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. “I started doing room-size installations. Really big stuff.”

Berlant went to graduate school at the Elam School of Fine Arts at Auckland University in New Zealand, but only stayed a semester. “They wanted me to minimize. My stuff is very big and loud and they were like, ‘Oh, it’s American. They want to do big stuff.’ And I’m like, ‘I’m not even really American.’ Everybody wanted me to do smaller, quieter stuff. One teacher advised me I should say more with whispering than shouting. I didn’t say it, but I’m like, ‘I like shouting.’ ”

Berlant now paints and sculpts as loud and large as he wants. One of his sculptures, “The Success Tree Commissioned by Mike Todd,” stands at the corner of Monroe and Danny Thomas.

“I work on a bunch of different stuff at once. I have 50 things going. I’ll mix up some paint and I’ll put it on a bunch of different things. It’s very physical. It goes from these big, brash decisive movements — throwing stuff — to refinement.

“I dance around. I turn up the music. I’m always covered in paint and I make a mess.”

But, he said. “It’s a controlled chaos.

“I paint naked sometimes. I’m half way in the shower. I got the water turned on. When I get an idea, I either have to write it down or do it or I’ll forget it.

“I’m after an original, visual experience. I’m working toward a total sensory experience.”

Click here to see more of Berlant's work.

Michael Donahue: 529-2797