JULIA MCKINLAY

JULIA SAYS:

I think about the studio as a laboratory and use spaces to experiment with materials and processes. I am particularly interested in processes that in some way mimic nature, incorporating weight, heat, pressure and solidifying liquids.

My work investigates the representation of nature and landscape. I make installations by pulling together sculptures and prints to make a cohesive group that describes a specific place or environment. I am interested in the immersive experience of installation.

I gather images to work from during my research expeditions where I perform the roles of geologist, zoologist and cartographer. I am influenced by museum collections and the adventures of scientists and explorers.  My ideas for the kinds of places that the work represents comes from my own experiences, and is abstracted and transformed through material experimentation. In 2015 I travelled around Iceland gathering images and making prints and drawings of its unique geology and this experience is still influencing my work.

My sculptures behave either as specimens or display structures. The object making and the curating of their display are equally important.Each object within my work is an element of a world; vegetation, wildlife and geology are all represented.My hope is to create an environment for the viewer to explore. The legs of a fossilised creature appear through a portal, a moss observes the room and a steel pipe snakes through a dying undergrowth guiding the viewer like a navigator.

ABOUT JULIA:

Born in York, 1986. Lives and works in London.

Education: MFA Fine Art, Slade School of Fine Art (2014)

                   BA (Hons) Fine Art: Sculpture and Environmental Art, The Glasgow School of Art (2009)

Selected Exhibitions: (2016) Blokc, Project Space Wapping, London. (2015) Polyphonie X, 331 Green Lanes, London; Oh For You! I Would Do Anything, Tritongatan5, Gothenburg; Out in the Open, Listhus Gallery, Olafsfjordur, Iceland; Broomhill National Sculpture Prize 2015, Broomhill Art and Sculpture Foundation, Devon; Re-Launch, UCL Art Museum, UCL, London. (2014) Hoist, 46 Bavaria Road, London; Gazpacho, UCL, London; Slade MA/MFA Degree Show, UCL, London. (2010) RSA New Contemporaries 2010, The Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh.

Residencies:

University of Gloucester Degree Show Residency, Cheltenham (June 2016)

Listhus, Olafsfjordur, Iceland (2015)

Skaftfell Research Residency, Seyðisfjörður, Iceland (2015)

Slade Summer School Residency, UCL, London (2014)

Awards:

Finalist in The Broomhill National Sculpture Prize (2015)

The Boise Travel Scholarship (2014)

The Peter and Betty McLean Prize (2014)

New Collaborations Bursary Award, a-n The Artist’s Information Company (2014)

UCL Art Museum Prize for ‘A Printers Symphony’ (2013)

Julia is a member of Printers’ Symphony, a collaborative print group with fellow printmakers Eleanor Morgan, Dana Ariel and Georgina Tate.