Julie Rrap has been a major figure in Australian contemporary art for over 25 years. Since the mid-1970s, she has worked with photography, painting, sculpture, performance and video in an ongoing project concerned with representations of the body.

She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts Degree, University of Queensland in 1971, and studied at the National Art School, Sydney in 1974.

Her work has been selected for numerous international and national exhibitions, including the 1986, 1987, 1992 and 2008 Sydney Biennales, and more recently the 2007 Auckland Triennale, the 2009 Clemenger Contemporary Art Prize, NGV, Melbourne and in 2010, the Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, Korea.

She has won the Hermann's Art Award for her photograph Overstepping in 2001, the Redlands Art prize for a combined sculpture and photographic work in 2008 and the University of Queensland National Artists’ Self-Portrait Prize for her video work, 360 Degree Self-Portrait, in 2009.

In 2007, a publication and 25-year survey exhibition, Body Double, was curated at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney by Victoria Lynn. Rrap's works are held in every major public collection in Australia as well as in many corporate and private collections in Australia and overseas. She exhibits with Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney and Arc 1 Gallery, Melbourne.

A central focus in Rrap's work has been the human body and its representations, with a particular emphasis on the female body within western art history. Over a 30-year period this interest has been explored through a variety of media that challenge the conventions of content and of form.

Photography has been a particular focus because as a medium it bridges fine art and popular imagery, allowing the artwork to dialogue with broader concerns about the body. The use of digital techniques has allowed the exploration of the surrealism of the image in a world gone surreal with medical interventions into the body.

Rrap has utilised numerous media, including sculpture, painting, drawing and video, often combined as installations. A pivotal work, Body Double (2007), combined silicon body casts, projected video, sound and interactive elements and created an immersive environment for the viewer. The audience has always played a central role in Rrap's investigations of the body, allowing 'their' bodies to become entangled in these representational questionings.