As a narrator of culture, Judy focuses on remembrance, connection, and storytelling. She works with materials and methods that best express the story, such as organic and recycled materials, textiles, ethnic remnants, paint, and video. Her process involves researching, collecting, and interacting with people to reveal what wants to be seen. Shintani often collaborates with the community in the making of art. She received her MA in Transformative Art from JFKU in Berkeley and a BA in Graphic Design from San Jose State. She is a 2015 Joan Mitchell Emerging Artist Grant nominee.

Shintani has been focusing on personal motivations behind emigration in her recent work, including religious, economic, and health reasons. 120,000 Japanese Americans and those of Japanese descent were removed from the West Coast and imprisoned for having the face of the enemy during WWII. Shintani has created art around this injustice by  collecting internee memories and integrating them into installations. She also collaborates with viewers of her work, incorporating their written responses to this time in history and how it relates to current issues of discrimination and war.  She continued her exploration of the unjust Japanese American incarceration at a residency in New Mexico during the fall of 2015.