Leidy Churchman: Free Delivery

Curated by Moritz Wesseler

The artist Leidy Churchman (born in Villanova, Pennsylvania, in 1979) is concerned with how images are consumed and processed in the present age, when visual stimuli are omnipresent. His paintings are often based on pre-existing images—expropriated from the “extraordinary junkyard” of circulating visual information. He copies the works of other artists, uses logos, book covers or advertisements as sources, and makes references to Far Eastern religions as well as the hard and soft sciences. The pictorial universe that Churchman’s work presents seems familiar, yet his paintings differ from their sources to a greater or lesser extent. The New York artist’s appropriation of images eclipses a mere transfer into the medium of painting. Churchman’s works exude an inexplicable and mysterious magic that is difficult to escape.

Leidy Churchman lives and works in New York. He has recently participated in much-discussed thematic exhibitions including Painting 2.0: Expression in the Information Age at Munich’s Museum Brandhorst (2015) and at mumok – Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien (2016). In recent years he has also presented works at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York (2016), the Kunsthalle Bern (2015), the National Gallery of Denmark in Copenhagen (2014) and at MoMA PS1 in New York (2010). In 2013 Churchman had a solo exhibition at the Boston University Art Gallery and the first monograph on his work as an artist was created to accompany it.