Leidy Churchman’s figurative and abstract paintings are heavily informed by the artist’s experiences and challenges as a transgender individual and student of Buddhism, while also being influenced by the work of modern painters like Henri Rousseau, Marsden Hartley, and Chaim Soutine.
Basically Good
Churchman’s small painting Narcissistic Rat (2013) was first exhibited in 2015 and later renamed Basically Good in 2017. This creative gestation period is not uncommon for some of the artist’s works, which conceptually develop over time.
In the painting, a hairy-tailed rat perches just above the water, looking down at its distorted, more mouse-like reflection. Appearing vexed by its mirrored self beyond the uncrossable divide, the rat serves to explore deeper themes of self-identity and perception. Replacing direct allusion to the myth of Narcissus with the more neutral rat, Basically Good reassures us that it does not truly matter what species, gender, or shape one sees in the mirror.
Animals
Animals are a common subject of Churchman’s paintings. Churchman’s Crocodile (2016), originally conceived in 2013, presents an internet-sourced image of a crocodile walking into water. Churchman found conceptual inspiration for this work in the ‘stunning sense of immersion, of going into the world—farther.’
In Giraffe Birth (2017), the artist references an image taken from a Buzzfeed post titled ‘Tour Operator Captures Incredible Pictures of Baby Giraffe Being Born’, a familiar internet listicle phenomenon. Churchman isolates the first image of the unusually stoic giraffe standing with the amniotic sac and a pair of legs just emerging. In a play on presence and emptiness, the pale part of the giraffe’s coat are bare canvas.
Artistic Homage
Churchman pays overt homage to a diverse slate of artists in several works, all of them personal in some form. Among them, Rousseau (2015) presents a Rousseau-like animal-inhabited landscape; The Piers Untitled by Emily Roysdon (2016) pays homage to LTTR compatriot Every Ocean Hughes; Kruger (2017) renders Barbara Kruger’s Untitled (Seeing through you) (2004) in oil on linen; and New Dawn Marsden Hartley Soutine (2014) recreates the titular Maine-based queer artist’s painting Madawaska—Acadian Light-Heavy (1940). Churchman’s Hartley rendition is notably accentuated in its erotic charge, expressed in red paint with chalky-white streaks and with an image that seemingly escapes from the frame.
Runway Bardo
Churchman’s 32-foot-long floor painting Don’t Try to Be the Fastest (Runway Bardo) (2019) presents an amorphous collage of imagery on a pulsating red ground. Incorporated images include stills from the 1982 film E.T., the Buddhist Lojong slogan ‘Abandon Any Hope of Fruition’, NASA’s iconic black hole photo, a Vogue magazine cover, a skunk mid-spray, trans rights posters, and paintings by René Magritte and Giorgio de Chirico.
The Between is Ringing
Buddhism, which Churchman began practising around 2013, is a favourite theme, particularly in works since 2020. In the series ‘The Between is Ringing’ (2020), the artist makes a departure from found imagery, dipping into more abstract representation in several of the works. Its name, an old Taoist saying, connects with Buddhist notions of non-duality and non-separateness.
Within the paintings, Churchman leaves room for what is unknown or unresolved, the in-between. Subtle resonations can also be found across the series’ works, evocative of unexpected thoughts, memories, and emotions that can arise. The small orange dots on burgundy red in The Between is Ringing (Sparkling Bruised) (2020), for instance, are transformed into tiny seeds on plump fruit in The Between is Ringing (Strawberry) (Braiding Sweetgrass) (2020).
