Julia López was born in 1935 in a village near the city of Ometepec along the Costa Chica of the state of Guerrero. One of seven children, she was born to parents of African and Amuzga descent. Her parents were stock breeders. Between the ages of 13 and 15, J. López worked in Ometepec and Acapulco. At 16 she left behind the sunny, colourful and lush landscapes of the Costa Chica for Mexico City, where she began working as a model for formal and wedding dresses.
At the time of her arrival in the capital, the burgeoning and dynamic artistic scene, in which women were active participants, was rife with new aesthetic offerings. Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) invited J. López to join La Esmeralda, the national art school, a centre for Mexico City’s avant-garde. There, and at the Academia de San Carlos, J. López modelled for artists such as Diego Rivera (1886-1957), José Chávez Morado (1909-2002), Antonio Ruiz “El Corcito” (1892-1964), Pedro Coronel (1921-1985) and Rafael Coronel (1932-2019).

Her friendship with these artists immersed her in a world full of new forms of expression. Supported by Enrique Echeverría (1923-1972), Alberto Gironella (1929-1999), Manuel Felguérez (1928-2020) and Vlady (1920-2005), J. López first exhibited at the Prisse Gallery, an alternative space promoting young painters. She notably painted alongside Carlos Orozco Romero (1896-1984), who discouraged her from taking formal art classes so as to not lose her “authentic” style.

J. López drew her pictorial conceptions from within herself. She is part of Generación de la Ruptura [Breakaway generation], which, unlike muralism, focuses on personal rather than political issues. Her art expresses her personal history and her memories of Costa Chica. Vibrant and soft colours fade into each other creating a dazzling spectrum; they reveal dreams, realities, imagination and most of all, an expression of freedom. J. López’s handling of the colours reveals the transparency of the fabrics and of the crystalline water in which fish swim and brown bodies are submerged. She equally captures the movement of the wind through her characters’ floating hair. Colourful flowers, chubby children, Virgins and smiling angels are characteristic forms and figures in her paintings.

Since the 1950s her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in Mexico, the United States and Europe. She won the Premio Nuevos Valores at the Salon de la Plastica Mexicana at the National Institute of Fine Arts in 1964. In 2024, J. López lives in Milan where she still paints.