Leidy Churchman

Leidy Churchman in their studio, 2022

Leidy Churchman (born 1979 in Villanova, PA) is an American painter who lives and works in New York.

Early life and education

Churchman received their M.F.A. from Columbia University in 2010 and B.A. from Hampshire College, Amherst, Massachusetts, in 2002. From 2011–12, they were a resident artist at Rijksakademie van Beeldende in Amsterdam. The artist's work has been reviewed in the New York Times and Artforum.

Career

Churchman first presented their work publicly in 2002 through queer feminist journal and art collective LTTR, which also included artists K8 Hardy, Every Ocean Hughs (then Emily Roysdon), and Ginger Brooks.

Crocodile, Churchman's first US museum exhibition at Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College, surveyed more than sixty oil paintings dating from 2010 to 2019. The accompanying catalogue, co-published by Dancing Foxes Press and CCS Bard, features essays by Ruba Katrib, Arnisa Zeqo and Alex Kitnick, as well as an interview between Churchman and curator Lauren Cornell. Churchman's work has been the subject of institutional exhibitions at Kölnischer Kunstverein (2017) and Boston University Art Gallery, and was also included in the important group exhibitions One day at a Time: Manny Farber and Termite Art at Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2018–19); Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon at the New Museum, New York (2017–18); Painting 2.0: Expression in the Information Age at Museum Brandhorst, Munich (2015), and Greater New York, MoMA PS1, New York (2010).

Churchman's work is held in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art and Mumok, among others.

Churchman's work is represented by Matthew Marks Gallery.

He is concerned with the question of how images are perceived and processed in the present age, when visual stimuli display an omnipresence.

In addition, during the period from 2011 till 2012, Churchman acted as a resident artist at Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam. Currently, he lives and works in New York City.

Achievements

• Leidy Churchman is a well-known painter, who is known for his works, that explore the question of how images are perceived and processed in the modern world.
• Leidy is a recipient of the Hampshire College Threshold Grant for Continued Study. His works are kept in the collections of different museums, including the Whitney Museum of American Art and Mumok.

Views

Leidy Churchman explores the way images are perceived and processed in modern times. Within this context, he produces paintings, based on pre-existing images from the "extraordinary junkyard' of visual formulations. Thus, the artist copies the works of other artists and uses logos, book covers or advertisements as sources or makes references to Far Eastern religions or art, related to folklore. For this reason, the pictorial universe, that confronts viewers in Churchman’s presentations, often seems familiar, even if the paintings differ from their sources to a greater or lesser extent.