Art and Culture Center's 'Subprime/Subtropics' takes on hurricanes, banks

"Orange Crush," artist Phillip Estlund's collage on found wood, depicts a post-flood image of a mangled home. Part of the structure has been lifted skyward, and much of the siding has been ripped off. The cracks and moldlike discoloration of the collage's wood base contributes to the dreariness of the scene. Adding some color, and perhaps hope, are brightly colored Florida oranges, with bright-green leaves still attached. The house appears to have landed on, but not crushed, the fruit, which is disproportionally large and suggestive of gifts Floridians ship to Northern relatives in order to brag, "I'm in a subtropical paradise while you're shoveling snow."

This 2007 collage is one of many works in "Subprime/Subtropics," Estlund's solo exhibition that opens Friday at the Art and Culture Center of Hollywood. The show, which also includes sculptures, prints, a diorama and a site-specific installation, explores the psychological and physical effects of natural and man-made disasters.

Many of the works depict structures that appear to have stood up to nature and lost the battle. But as the show's title suggests, Estlund is also concerned with another equally unforgiving entity: banks.

Boarded-up structures in varying states of disrepair became prevalent in Estlund's work shortly after the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, the most active in recorded history.

"I had been using house iconography up until then, predominantly in collages having to do with architecture and nature," explains Estlund, who in 2001 moved fromWashington, D.C., to South Florida. "The hurricanes and the tenuous nature of structures considered solid reinforced that they're as subject to nature as anything is, and created for me a whole source of new materials."

His works came to include post-hurricane fencing material and aluminum blinds, which are presented as siding in sculptures such as "Reclaimed/Repossessed (A Derelict Nature)." The piece reveals a boarded-up and roofless structure covered in yellow-brown drop marks.

Estlund says the show has evolved since he first discussed it with Art and Culture Center curator Jane Hart. Last September, after "a bit of a dismal experience" in South Florida, Estlund downsized from a Lake Worth warehouse to a smaller West Palm Beach studio so he could live part-time in New York. Nine months away gave him a new perspective, which he plans to incorporate in site-specific murals and installations that will accompany his sculptures and collages about nature's penetration of domestic spaces.

"Home Invasion Series 1" shows a brick-walled room with a large, circular, black couch facing a fireplace. Rather than flames, large red tentacles reach from the opening, but no one is there to see them. "Nature Study," another collage, depicts people around a built-in swimming pool. All are intensely focused on writing or sketching and oblivious to the bright-green sea anemones emerging from the pool.

In these works and similar collages, nature is ever-present, and yet seemingly invisible to humans. At least until disaster strikes.

Colleen Dougher operates the South Florida arts blog Arterpillar.

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Art and Culture Center's 'Subprime/Subtropics' takes on hurricanes, banks