Like most surrealists, Dusti Bongé's surrealist works were fueled by dreams and the subconscious. However, some of hers were nonetheless still inspired by her daily observations. But instead of springing primarily from visual elements, they are influenced by cultural phenomena, which Dusti rendered in unfamiliar ways or subverted into idiosyncratic fantasies. 

One such a cultural gem was the circus, with its abundance of all things fantastical. Dusti’s fondness of the spectacle of the circus, especially the tangled pre-show mess of setting up the big tent, perhaps was partly a hold-over from her days traveling in the Lyceum circuit as a young actor. Regardless, the inherently surreal and uncanny nature of the circus was not lost on her. Thus, in her surrealist approach, rather than juxtaposing or fusing disparate elements, like lobsters and phones, she zeroed in on the absurd found in plain sight.

These works, loosely referred to as the Circus Series, in contrast to her early works like the cityscapes, abandon the angular, color-blocked, cubist forms for sweeping, swirling, elastic lines and shapes that move across the canvas. Though still boldly colored, the figure and ground are often activated by patterns. 

Their subject matter shifted from cityscapes, which never contained any human figures, to complex and confusing scenes, mixing elements from the circus and the seafood industry with human figures, seabirds, (canned) fish, horses, tents, carousels, tattooed ladies, and cages.