Artist Bio

Julie Grantz creates large-scale charcoal and pastel drawings that give form to silence, resilience, and transformation. Her practice began as an attempt to tell her own stories visually—what could not be said, only drawn. Over time, her work has become a channel for the heroic spirit of her childhood, her younger self, and her mother self, while also tracing the dualities of identity and belonging. She considers herself in service to her drawings: each piece is a means of processing trauma and reclaiming a voice once muted.

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Her drawings are planned with meticulous care—lighting, wardrobe, intention—but in the act of making, the work veers into the unknown. Figures emerge slowly, through hundreds of hours of pushing and pulling dry pigment into and out of cotton-fiber paper. Julie calls this “sculpting on paper,” a physical excavation that leaves behind both image and scar. Many of her self-portraits originate from memory, re-enacted in her studio so that gesture, posture, and light carry the weight of lived experience.

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Recent work has marked a shift from darkness to light. After cancer treatment, Julie began Io Sono Italiana, an ongoing series of luminous allegorical oil paintings that celebrate joy, identity, and cultural imagination. These works honor her deep connection to Italy’s art and landscape, reframing personal myth through symbols of belonging and resilience.

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Julie’s work has been exhibited at the Triton Museum of Art, where her solo show Dis/Armed explored themes of female self-silencing and empowerment. Her drawing Wishbone was also selected for The de Young Open. She lives and works in Alameda, California, in a tiny home with her son, dog, and two cats, balancing a professional career as an Associate Creative Director with the demands of her studio practice.