Julia McKinlay

My work is spatial. It moves between two- and three-dimensions, translating forms across drawing, print and sculpture processes. Mutations and evolutions happen as subjects shift across dimensions. Responding to the qualities and agency of material drives my practice. Metal is malleable, pigments bleed and acids react. Through interacting with these materials, a body of work emerges. Many of my works explore the narrow spatial field of flat materials and how they can be cut, embossed, saturated, etched, incised or polished into something that feels absolute. I create bodies of work in series to be exhibited as spatial configurations that represent imagined spaces and environments, where matter and objects interact, collide and create new connections. Previous works have represented the surface of a snail’s shell, an obscure garden, or the edge of the world. The viewer is invited to explore bodies of work physically and imaginatively. Science fiction and new materialist theory that explores the contact between humans and other species/geologies shapes the imagined spaces in my work. Through my process driven practice, I am seeking to capture moments where colour, form, line and surface combine to reveal sensations or observations that I find impossible to verbalise.

I am originally from York and now live and work in Leeds, UK. I graduated from BA Fine Art: Sculpture and Environmental Art at the Glasgow School of Art in 2009, and MFA Fine Art (Sculpture pathway) at The Slade School of Fine Art in 2014. I completed my practice-based PhD at Leeds Beckett University in collaboration with Yorkshire Sculpture International in 2022, titled: ‘Acid-Soaked Molluscs: a xenophoric approach to practising sculpture and print’. I am currently a Lecturer in Fine Art in the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies at University of Leeds, and previously held teaching positions at Leeds Arts University and Newcastle University. I’m also a member of the Plant: Embedded Research Network. 

Recent exhibitions include Constructing the Surface, Gloam Gallery, Sheffield (2025); Slip Across These Planes, Hyde Park Art Club, Leeds (2025); Surface and Form, AIR3331, Tokyo (2024); Making Poetry with Solid Objects II, Komagome SOKO, Tokyo; A Pair of Lungs with Hiroko Nakajima at Nakanojo Biennale 2023, Gunma, Japan (2023); Leeds Artists Show 2023, Leeds Art Gallery (2023); Figureheads: Members Show 2022, Bloc Projects, Sheffield (2022).

My artist book Feeling the Underside (2019) was published by Yorkshire Sculpture International and Leeds Beckett University. I have participated in residencies at Glasgow Print Studio, Glasgow; AIR3331, Tokyo; MI-LAB, Japan; METAL, Southend-on-Sea; Joya: arte + ecologia, Spain; Listhus, Iceland; Skaftfell, Iceland.

Alongside my practice I am also curator of exhibitions at Threshold, an open-air space for sculpture in Leeds, and publishes books on contemporary sculpture under the imprint Threshold Editions.