Leidy Churchman

Leidy Churchman uses oil paint to transform a variety of found materials into strikingly realistic objects of a similar size and shape: squashed cigarette butts are made from twigs, juicy-looking strawberries are actually rocks, and what looks like a convincing hunk of blue cheese is in fact a rough, angular piece of stone. A worn-looking replica of a prominent art book, Art in Theory, 1900–2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, painted on a thick wedge of wood, appears on the bottom shelf. Using artifice to question the nature of objects, Cart in Theory (a pun on the book’s title), asks us to consider whether the cart becomes theoretical instead of functional when it is lifted out of “real life” and placed in an artwork. The artist frequently added and removed various objects to and from this work prior to the museum’s acquisition. It was only then that it became a true “still life”—finite in quantity and fixed forever in its arrangement and presentation.