Julie McLachlan was born on July 8, 1996. Grew up in Brisbane QLD Australia. She had always been fascinated by art, this included animals and nature and her being naturally curious art and creating. Becoming mesmerized by art at a very young age, which was inclusive through her imagination and her fascination with her mum's paintings, her mum is a landscape painter. Her first art gallery she saw was the Brisbane Art Gallery, where she was taken by the paintings and sculptures with her mum.

 

 

When she was in school her love for art grew as she was always drawing. Her time spent in primary school, was in her imagination and drawing random lines and shapes.  She attended Mt Gravatt State Highschool in 2010 where she studied two art subjects after grade 9. 

 

During high school, she was taught how to draw the basic methods of drawing. In the development of her art, she explored works that were done in the Neo -classists era of painting and then progressed into her interest in impressionism. She learnt how to draw realism because the art teacher told her that realism was the only way to produce art. In early high school, her mum had gifted with a small box of pastels in 2011. Throughout high school, she developed more skills in graphite and pastel drawing where she established works that depicted subject matters that were popular from Neo- classism era, societies way of thinking about human interaction and animal rights, also she did graphite and colour studies.

 

 

In the senior years of high school, she won an ‘Award of Excellence in 2013’ for an abstract work she had done during one of her art classes. Her teacher encouraged her to follow her dreams into becoming an artist. After she graduated Mt Gravatt State Highschool 2014,  people around her told her art wasn’t going to get her anywhere and that it was a waste of time. But with determination, she started to study the Diploma of Fine art, TAFE of Queensland South on Bank Campus, 2015.

 

 

During her diploma studies, she had been exploring the fields of drawing, sculpture, printmaking, and ceramics. She did not study painting during this time.  During this time she had been exploring realism in animals and inanimate objects. She had created a project based on birds in her local area that were considered pest, but she studied the way they socialized with one another. During the diploma, her skills in drawing the figure were depicted when she was in life drawing with the rest of her classmates, she had met during her studies were she experimented with materials she enjoyed such as graphite, pastel,  charcoal and inks. She had created a character that was seen in a dream called the ‘ClockFacedMan’. He was depicted through her sketchbooks and her prints that she had done during the diploma. In the graduate exhibition for the diploma 2015, she had sold her first artwork, which was a Soft Pastel drawing that depicted a surreal dreamscape 2015 and a ceramic sculpture that was apart of a series called 'Ageing'.

 

She then proceeded into the Bachelor of Fine arts at the University of Canberra on TAFE Queensland Southbank Campus, 2016 as a Second year. Where she explored more in-depth with the subject matter of the human form and the interaction with animals and their connection with the society we live in today. During her studies in the bachelor, she began to sketch people she knew and continued doing so, into her future projects. During her second year of her studies, she progressed into exploring human form through surrealism and skill development. During her development as an artist has been exploring the human form into more of a deeper concept, by starting to distort and sketch her subject from life around her such as public spaces and family Members. On her last year of the Bachelor, she had a ‘Solo Exhibition, The Notions of Sleep 2017’ at the University of Canberra on Southbank Campus. She has also had a ‘Group Exhibition, at ShowArts Gallery, in Logan QLD 2017’ was she sold two drawings. In her current art practice, she is having another exhibition at ‘ShowArts Gallery, in Logan QLD’, sometime in the middle of the next year 2018.