Berenz has an MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an MA from Northern Illinois University, and a BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. Berenz blurs the lines between realism and abstraction, beauty and horror, devastation and the sublime. He uses the disaster motif as a metaphor to create conversations about personal, sociopolitical, environmental and ideological issues. The choice of images is always changing, but always returns to a pile. His paintings depict the still after a disaster, the quiet resulting from devastation.