It is with great sadness that we present a memorial exhibition honoring Chris Corales (1969–2018), an artist first introduced to Fleisher/Ollman by Chris Johanson in the 2011 summer show he curated for the gallery, entitled Introspective/Retrospective. Originally from the Bay Area, then Portland, OR, Chris Corales relocated to Philadelphia in 2012, where he is warmly remembered. In late summer 2014, Corales moved to Toronto. Corales’ first solo exhibition with Fleisher/Ollman, Imitation of Home, occurred that autumn, and explored his migratory status and his longing for domestic familiarity as someone who lived in four different cities in the span of four years. The title of the memorial exhibition, A Passer-By in His Own Moment, is a phrase from Corales’ observational writings, a private aspect of his creative endeavors that few were aware of.

Corales’ work evokes Constructivist painting by way of found paper collage, for which he selected paper based on color and texture, eschewing materials with text and imagery. His collages inhabit a space at once raw and refined where antique surfaces are transformed into a form of abstraction not usually associated with the collage medium, which is often driven by image and narrative. Both his compositions and materials conspire to suggest a kind of found modernism, as if decades-old artworks have been unearthed in relatively pristine condition, except for the aged paper that bears the imprint of time.

Chris Corales participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in San Francisco, CA at venues including Gregory Lind Gallery, Luggage Store Gallery, Adobe Books, San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, and New Langton Arts. He showed nationally with Fleisher/Ollman, Philadelphia, PA; Adams and Ollman, Portland, OR; Pavel Zoubok Gallery, New York, NY; Samson Projects, Boston, MA; and the International Collage Center, Milton, PA. His work has been featured in international exhibitions at Pierogi Gallery, Leipzig, Germany and Galeria Zé dos Bois, Lisbon, Portugal.