Julia Holderness (b. 1980, Aotearoa New Zealand) lives and works in Ōtautahi Christchurch. She completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Canterbury in 2002, followed by an Honours degree in Visual Arts at AUT University, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, in 2015. In 2022, she completed a practice-led PhD in Visual Arts at AUT University. Her doctoral thesis, Ever Present Archiving: Methodologies for Art Histories through Invention, Fabrication and Social Practice, explores archives and the ways they construct art-historical narratives. In 2025, Holderness was awarded the ZAWAA Canterbury Women's Art Award.

Holderness's practice is often collaborative, working alongside both historical and contemporary artists. Through the creation of narratives that may or may not have existed—including imagined artists, collectives, movements, and exhibitions—her research examines the role of fiction in the collection, interpretation, and construction of material histories. Challenging conventional distinctions between art-historical scholarship and artistic fabrication, she employs invented personae, artworks, and exhibitions to trace alternative histories of modernism in Aotearoa New Zealand. Her installations combine mixed-media fabrications, particularly textiles and ceramics, with materials drawn from art and design archives, often incorporating sound and text. Her collaborative practice as Fitts & Holderness has included exhibitions and residencies throughout Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally.

Holderness was awarded an AUT University Vice-Chancellor's Doctoral Scholarship and received the Glaister Ennor Graduate Art Award in 2016. Significant projects include her PhD exhibition Schemes for Vibrant Living at Te Wai Ngutu Kākā Gallery, AUT University; The Studio, developed for Dunedin Public Art Gallery in 2021; Florence & Florence: Other Textile Histories, presented at Ilam Campus Gallery in 2018; and Gallery 91 for SCAPE Public Art in 2017.

In 2023, Holderness participated in Living Room, an exhibition presented by Objectspace Ōtautahi at the Sir Miles Warren Gallery. Curated by Kim Paton and Caroline Billing, the exhibition explored how domestic spaces are designed and adorned as acts of self-expression.

In 2024, Holderness was included in Modern Women: Flight of Time at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. Curated by Julia Waite, this landmark exhibition highlighted the leading role women artists have played in shaping modern art in Aotearoa New Zealand. Holderness contributed two vitrine installations, a series of photographs, and an audio work.

Developed for Rokowhiria Ashburton Art Gallery as part of her ZAWAA award, Holderness's solo exhibition Botanical Correspondents responds to the artistic legacy of nineteenth-century botanical artist Emily Cumming Harris (1837–1925), presenting a new body of work that reflects on botanical illustration, archival practice, and historical narrative.

Julia Holderness will exhibit new work in the group show "Other People's Flowers" in August 2026.  She is represented by Sanderson Gallery.