New exhibition hosted by Hyde Park Art Club in Leeds presents works by Dr Julia McKinlay
Slip Across These Planes is a solo presentation of works by Leeds based artist Dr Julia McKinlay.
Opening this month at Hyde Park Book Club on Headingley Lane, this new collection of bold printed and drawn matter responds to materials and offers a bodily utterance that can be felt as well as seen.
They present an embodied articulation of McKinlay’s inner visual language, which seeks to interact and form further connections with the viewer and the space in which they are presented.
Running to 15 March, the show launches on Friday 17 January with a private view and artist in conversation with Julia McKinlay and Hyde Park Art Club curator Marion Harrison, and a set by DJ Spede Bump.
Julia McKinlay, Incision I, 2024. Photograph by Fumimaro Ayano.
Currently a Lecturer in Fine Art in the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds, Julia McKinlay’s practice is a process of discovering a language of sculptural forms. Her work explores the boundaries of the human made in relation to organic and lithic matter. McKinlay’s work is spatial – she is interested in how objects and images interact in space and form connections with the viewer, sometimes creating imagined worlds for the viewer to explore.
For McKinlay’s solo presentation at Hyde Park Art Club, work shifts away from external subject matter towards capturing specific shapes colours and forms that linger in the artists mind.
McKinlay describes these forms as ‘a language specific to my practice and my way of processing of the world as I experience it, a conglomeration of moments concretised into something solid’.
Julia McKinlay, Form II, 2024. Photograph by Fumimaro Ayano.
Julia McKinlay’s practice spans sculpture, drawing and print. McKinlay graduated from BA Fine Art: Sculpture and Environmental Art at Glasgow School of Art in 2009, and MFA Fine Art Sculpture at The Slade School of Fine Art in 2014. She completed her PhD by practice at Leeds Beckett University with Yorkshire Sculpture International in 2021.
In 2021, McKinlay founded and curated Threshold, an open-air gallery for exhibitions of sculpture in Leeds. She has participated in residencies at AIR 3331, Tokyo; MI-LAB, Lake Kawaguchiko; METAL, Southend-on-Sea; Joya: arte + ecologia, Spain; Listhus, Iceland; Skaftfell, Iceland and has shown extensively nationally and internationally.
She joined the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies as a Lecturer in Fine Art in 2022.
Julia McKinlay, Surface and Form, 2024. AIR3331 Iwamotocho Studio, Tokyo. Photograph by Fumimaro Ayano.
Julia said:
“In Slip Across These Planes I am presenting a group of new drawings and prints, working principally with paper, pigments and sheet material to explore shape, surface, weight and colour.
“The artworks will explore the narrow spatial field of flat materials and how they can be cut, embossed, incised and polished into something that feels absolute.”
Some of the works included in the exhibition were developed during a two-week production residency at Glasgow Print Studio in 2024 where Julia worked with master printers to develop a new series of etchings. The residency was supported by the award of an Arts Council England Developing Your Creative Practice Grant.
Julia McKinlay, Edges, 2024. Photograph by Fumimaro Ayano.
McKinlay’s previous works have represented the surface of a snail’s shell, an obscure garden and the edge of the world, often shifting the viewer’s gaze between two and three-dimensions, translating forms through a generous drawing, print and sculpture hybrid process.
Mutations and evolutions happen as subjects slip across these planes. The incorporation of material processes that mimic geological or biological processes through applying chemical reactions, heat, and pressure allow a real response to the qualities and agency of material that drives McKinlay’s investigative alchemic material practice. McKinlay said:
“Metal is malleable and resistant, pigments bleed and acid reacts. Through interacting with these materials, a body of work emerges.”
Julia McKinlay, Edge, 2024. Photograph by Fumimaro Ayano.
Sarah Roberts from Hyde Park Book Club said:
“We are beyond excited to show this new body of work by one of Leeds' most talented artists, who also offers invaluable support to the overarching art scene in our city through their work at the University of Leeds and as founder and director at Threshold Gallery.
“This careful and invigorating body of work feels really right in a space like Hyde Park Art Club – it’s work that you instinctively respond to as a body and, on its other levels, it opens up generous critical discourse on matter and our relationship to it.
“Julia makes work that moves the viewer across planes and media into some new liminal space for looking. We are delighted to be working with her to present this excellent new show to usher in 2025 and all it brings.”
Julia McKinlay, Pressure I and Pressure II, 2024. Photograph by Fumimaro Ayano.
More information
Slip Across These Planes by Julia McKinlay is open daily from 17 January to 15 March, 10am to 5pm, at Hyde Park Book Club, 27-29 Headingley Lane, Leeds LS6 1BL.
The exhibition opens on Friday 17 January (6.30 to 9pm) with a private view and artist in conversation with Julia McKinlay and curator Marion Harrison, plus set by DJ Spede Bump. Book your place at the opening event.
Find out more about Julia McKinlay.
Follow Julia McKinlay on Instagram.
Feature image
Julia McKinlay, Fragment and Incision IV, 2024. Photograph by Fumimaro Ayano.
