About Jul
About My Practice:
The majority of the collages I sell and showcase within my local art scene are 12inchx12inch on paper using paper. These pieces primarily explore nature, spirituality, embodiment and the LGBTQIA+ experience. They are a celebration of interconnectedness, community and the beauty of queer expression.
My mixed media wax collages are called “Spell Collages” because they are each a magickal ritual I perform under a full moon. I harness the energy and direct it towards community protection, healing, and liberation. I do not manipulate the wax with my hands, instead using words, herbs and intention to channel each piece.
My mirror series that I am currently working on will be three 48inchx48inch paper/mixed media collages on canvas that combine collage and witchcraft more directly. Each piece in the series intends to exorcise shame, fear and violence and reconnect the viewer to their body and heart.
My first piece in the series, “Eat Your Heart Out”, addresses ancestry, grief, and systemic violence. It began as an avenue for my own decolonial shadow work but has evolved into a larger conversation around our collective shadow under these systems. By gazing into the mirror of our individual and collective subconscious, we experience ourselves as a portal to the past, present and future. I hope this work helps to plant seeds of truth, revelation and healing in those that need it most so that we may expel this evil from existence permanently. And so it is.
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.