Fleisher/Ollman occasionally invites individuals to curate exhibitions responding to the gallery's program and history. For summer 2011, the gallery asked West Coast-based artist Chris Johanson. Johanson originally met Chris Corales, Joe Turner, and Christine Shields through social and music circles in San Francisco. In this exhibition Johanson connects the introspective and self-taught working artistic practices of Chris Corales and Joe Turner, while also providing a retrospective exhibition space for the artist Christine Shields.

Chris Corales (b. 1969, Berkley, CA) lives and works in Portland, OR. His formally minimal works are created from found book and paper scrap materials, working with a palette of "color phrases" that reference larger themes such as the seasons and architecture. Descriptive titles hint at narratives not initially evident through the works' imagery. According to Johanson, Corales is "constantly looking at the discarded, what crosses his path... I remember many walks where Chris would have a small case specifically for his 'findings'--this is what he calls the magical pieces of thrown-away material."

Joe Turner (b. 1963, Santa Monica, CA) lives and works in the Mission District of San Francisco, but was raised with a traveling family between five states: California, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania and Maryland. He creates imaginative figures and dragons using twist ties, pipe cleaners, and paint. Turner works with a passion that Johanson describes as "constantly deeply concentrating. Every time I would see him he had a bag of twist ties making these sculptures." Johanson then discovered an entire row of Turner's works living above the bar at the Uptown, a local Mission District haunt.

Christine Shields (b. 1969, Mountain View, CA) lives and works in Sacramento, CA and has lived in San Francisco off and on since 1987. In the early 1990s she became involved in the thriving comics, zine and music scenes in New York and San Francisco. Johanson describes her artistic journey as one that has "taken many directions--from comics, album covers, music, performance, painting and illustration.... a well-rounded creative life built around necessity and imagination," and Shields' exhibition will therefore be retrospective in scope--including both old and new sculptures, paintings, drawings, albums and comics.

About the Curator:
Chris Johanson (b. 1968, San Jose, CA) is an artist currently living and working in Los Angeles, CA, recently relocated from Portland, OR. Johanson first started exhibiting in San Francisco, where he lived for fourteen years. Johanson believes that life is a series of actions and projects. That is why he makes many things in many media: painting, sculpture, installation, film, video, music, writing, bands, and enjoys collaborating with friends and strangers. Johanson's work has been exhibited widely, most recently at Baronian Francey in Brussels, Deitch Projects in New York, Jack Hanley in San Francisco, and was included in the 2002 Whitney Biennial.

Inquiries: info@fleisher-ollmangallery.com