Julia Grey (b.1981)Julia Grey (BAFineArt) is an artist based in Cape Town working in the mediums of collage, assemblage and pique-assiette mosaic. She achieved a first-class from the Michaelis School of Fine Arts (UCT) in 2003 where she developed a love for creating large-scale collage walls. Her work deals with socio-political themes and communicates uncomfortable truths in pretty and colourful mixed media.Her book Cape Town, An Illustrated Poem (Struik Publishing. 2005) is a full colour art journal; part travelogue and part personal manifesto involving collage, illustrations and poetry. The book is a work of self-discovery; documenting the visuals, questions and growing pains of a young person coming of age during the South African transition.In 2014, Julia held a solo show in Berlin, turning an entire room into an assemblaged world of paint, collage and found material. The exhibition titled Intaka Yakha NgoBoya Benye (A Bird Builds Its Nest With Another Bird’s Feathers) was a confrontation with the colonial and neo-colonial injustice that exists within the South African mining industry.Julia’s work is predominantly process-based: combining abandoned and scavenged materials as once disparate elements, into a new and meaningful whole. She uses art as a vehicle to contain emotional processing, advocates for a ‘personal is political’ approach and finds inspiration in Art Brut (Outsider Art) with its tendency for artists on the fringe of society to create entire worlds within which to experience something. Personal psychological breakdowns and spiritual insights have also informed her choice of subject matter.Julia works from a studio at Side Street Studios in Woodstock, Cape Town.