Two Queer Artists Bringing The LGBTQ+ Community Educational Empowerment Through Their Art
- Niamh Brownhill
- Jun 5, 2021
- 5 min read
A hidden sub culture within the LGBTQ+ community, is queer creatives and artists and these people are bringing representation of the different aspects of the LGBTQ+ community through drawings, paintings and or digital art. Meet Zoe and Emily two queer creators from two different parts of the UK who are making statements through their art.
Zoe, 28, an open lesbian woman currently a PhD student at the University of Chester has been working professionally and creating art within the arts industry for almost 10 years, creating prints that represent moments of intimacy.
With having a creative family and have been creating for most of her life, Zoe tells us about the inspiration behind her art platform Fade arts and what it is been like being a queer person within the arts industry.
@FADE_ARTS
"I’ve been a creator my entire life, I was truly fortunate to be born into a family who valued the arts and encouraged my interests no matter how bizarre.
"As I developed my artistic presence I began to look more inwardly, I started to notice things about myself that my friends didn’t do… like look at women romantically. I grew up in a small town in Northern Ireland where I had never met a queer person before (that I knew of) and as a result I didn’t even have words for what I was feeling, I didn’t know what a lesbian was… I just knew it was a bad word. Inspiration hit me when I was about 8 or 9 years old and I started to sketch what I thought nude women would look like.
@FADE_ARTS
"Nowadays I am consistently captivated by bodies and trying to capture moments of intimacy. I love the movement, the flow and shared experience of intimate moments, The Discovery Collection represents my obsession with moments of bliss." Says Zoe
Zoe then goes onto talking about her favourite parts about being a queer creator.
"The best thing about being part of the queer arts community is how welcoming people are, but not only that I am exposed to so much queer art from other creators which only fuels me on to invest further into this community. Being able to be part of this cultural revolution and watch queer artists take back ownership over their bodies, their sexuality and their passions is inspiring." Zoe adds.
@FADE_ARTS
As well her artistic nature, Zoe is currently awaiting to run the London Marathon in October and raising money for the injured ruby club foundation, you can donate here...
Now lets meet Emily,
Emily is a 30 year old illustrator currently living in Liverpool, by day she is a NHS nurse which she refers to as her "muggle job" a reference which every Harry Potter fan would now, but Emily has always had a passion for anything creative since her school days.
Emily identifies as queer and embraces her sexuality through her art specialising in digital illustration and with having over 300 followers on her Instagram art page her art really captures peoples attention.
@EMILY_MAUD_ART
Emily tells us the inspiration behind her art and how she sometimes feels her injustices create inspiration.
"My art is inspired by queerness, feminism, the body positivity/ fat liberation movement. I think sometimes I create art that I want to see.
"In my experience it's definitely not easy being queer in a world that is still so hetero-normative. However, I feel that being queer in such a world, can also generate experiences which can be used as inspiration. I get really angry about injustices in the world and this inspires me to create art but I LOVE discovering other queer artists and illustrators! I also love the sense of community" she says.
Emily came out back in 2007 when she was 16, a time much different to now as gay was seen as ''weird'' and isn't celebrated like it is now and at the time she was attending a public school in Teesside, Middlesborough a place which didn't see diversity or differences.
She tells about her experiences and how being queer impacted her life.
"My sexuality is really important to me, it just feels like an intrinsic part of me, and I am proud to be queer! I suppose if I think back to how scary it felt to come out in my teens, it's nice to compare how accepting and at peace and proud I feel about being queer now, as an adult.
" Being queer I feel it's contributed positively to my awareness for others, and motivated me to frequently check in with myself and practice accepting of people and our differences as often and as best that I can. I couldn't imagine not being queer. Often the thing I find most difficult is being around non queer friendly people a lot of the time. I acknowledge I'm quite privileged in a lot of areas but I still experience and witness a lot of micro aggression of homophobia and other types of discrimination" she adds.
@EMILY_MAUD_ART
Despite the difficult aspects of her coming out journey at school Emily reminisces how accepting her family was and how her two gay uncles changed her outlook on life and what being queer means.
"I'm also incredibly lucky to have grown up with my two uncles who are also gay. I feel like they paved the way in my family as the first openly gay people so I feel really lucky that I had such brilliant role models to look up to.
"And although it wasn't always brilliant for me I'd like to acknowledge how terrifying things were just a decade or so earlier. My Uncles have shared some of their experiences with me. They explain that Teesside was frightening at times in the 70s and 80s. They experienced violence, from queer spaces being raided, homophobic abuse from neighbours when buying their first home together, and even at times from their parents.
"My uncles' explain that being queer has dominated the rest of their lives in terms of self-esteem, confidence issues, anxiety and depression. They have learned to live with the damage and use their experiences in a positive way in later life, making them more self aware and stronger people, caring less of what others may think! Being ‘different’ has made them look at life from a much more open minded perspective." she says.
So I am just so so fiercely proud of being queer and being a member of our LGBTQ+ community! a very diverse and creative community which is stimulating and empowering. The queer community provides opportunities to make our own families.
It is shown that Emily has taken her difficulties of being queer and the discrimination she has heard from her family and has turned them into beautiful and educational art pieces . With such a positive aura she finishes the interview talking about how the community has allowed her to be proud of who she is.
@EMILY_MAUD_ART
She says "I am just so so fiercely proud of being queer and being a member of our LGBTQ+ community, it is a very diverse and creative community which is stimulating and empowering. The queer community provides opportunities to make our own families."
To find out more about who they are and look at more of both Zoe and Emily's art you can find them on their social medias here -
Zoe - @FADE_ARTS
Emily - @EMILY_MAUD_ART
https://www.instagram.com/emily_maud_art/
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