Julia orginally trained as a painter. The works below show the paintings she produced during the first year of her Masters. Many of these works are oil on steel - a technique that allowed her to create crisp lines, and retain the remains of the underdrawings.

The core of this body of work was based upon two visits to Albania where she visited old Communist factories which had been left to ruination. Employing a heightened use of perspective she wanted to juxtapose a vision of 'progress' that was sought in the early years of Communism with the present day reality. The result is an impression of 'ruins of the future', where rockets lie abandoned, cracks form in once newly cast concrete, the fountains of workers' communal spaces sit abandoned and the dictator's mausoleum stands bare of its marble coat.