Placed statue on empty lorry in a perceptive way (8)
I believe the answer is:
astutely
'in a perceptive way' is the definition.
'placed statue on empty lorry' is the wordplay.
'placed' indicates anagramming the letters (placing the letters).
'on' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'empty' suggests removing the centre.
'lorry' with its middle taken out is 'ly'.
'statue' anagrammed gives 'astute'.
'astute'+'ly'='ASTUTELY'
(Other definitions for astutely that I've seen before include "In a shrewd manner" , "cannily" , "Shrewdly" .)