About Jul
Contact Me:
Jul Drake (they/them/theirs) is a collage and mixed-media artist, herbalist-in-training, and occultist based in Washington DC. Drawing on their Irish-American heritage and their LGBTQIA+ identities, their art is an exploration and excavation of duality and shadow. Collage became an outlet to explore gender and sexuality in high school before they were conscious of it, and they love how collage has the power to both fragment the past and build the future.
Jul has been walking between worlds their entire life, a concept known in Irish spirituality and Trans identity. The frenzy of color and movement throughout each of their pieces is intentionally playful and disorienting, reflecting the complex journey of returning home to yourself under systems designed for disembodiment.
Nature is also central to their work. They are currently in a six year program studying Irish Herbal Medicine in Ireland - a new journey of remembering land and tradition.
Liberation and justice have historically been the bedrock of collage, witchcraft and herbalism, and Jul is honored to weave these mediums to continue their legacies of empowerment, truth-telling and repair.
Jul would like to especially thank the many Black and Indigenous Artists, Thought-Leaders and Creators of Color behind all powerful and beautiful things in this world including Jul’s decolonial shadow work and art. The piece “Eat Your Heart Out” which critiques white supremacist capitalist patriarchy and its violent extraction is a direct result of artist and mentor Michaela Ayers who helped them find their Visual Voice, Dra. Rosales Meza of the Q’ero Inca lineage who guided them through the grief work needed to continuously divest from whiteness spiritually, emotionally, and financially, and Toni Morrison whose quote that “Art should be dangerous” spurred them to life.
Jul would also like to thank their family, friends, Well and Healed Ancestors and all of those in Spirit that guide and protect them everyday.