Biography
Ella Leidy (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist and sculptor who works with found objects, textiles, and photographs. Raised in North Dakota and now based in Saint Paul, Minnesota, her work explores how traditions shape identity in the rural Midwest. Leidy received her BFA in art from the University of Minnesota, where her work earned her both the Wayne and Virginia Potratz Scholarship and the Gay Grossman Memorial Scholarship. Her work has been featured in group exhibitions across the Twin Cities and in print nationally via Peters Valley School of Craft and Photo Trouvée Magazine. Leidy most recently completed a year-long residency at Second Shift Studio Space of Saint Paul, which culminated in her first solo exhibition, Exit Wound, in 2026. She is currently a member of MirrorLab Studios, an artist collective in Minneapolis.
Statement
My work explores the emotional and cultural landscapes of the rural American Midwest through found objects, textiles, and photographs. I am interested in how these everyday materials carry traces of the people and rituals that shaped them. I recontextualize found objects through processes of disassembly, reconstruction, and replication, engaging with both the personal and collective histories embedded within them. Through these processes, I examine how traditions are inherited, maintained, and altered over time, and how they can be simultaneously cherished and challenged.
My work is rooted in domestic spaces, where everyday objects become evidence of lived experience and routine. These objects are often ingrained with conventional gendered implications and associations. By disrupting the dialogue between form and function, I reveal how gender stereotypes are communicated through the materials we use, make, and pass down. Repetitive craft practices like crochet and embroidery are central to this process. I approach these techniques not simply as methods of making, but as forms of generational knowledge and craftsmanship often existing outside the field of fine art. By working with craft practices and materials, I consider how identity is reinforced through repetition and how inherited traditions can be subverted.