We’ve Rounded Up Some of Our Favorite LGBTQ Etsy Shops and Artists
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LGBTQ+ expression and celebration — two of the most dynamic and exciting aspects of our community — take many forms. Whether we’re working to achieve active representation in the world we see around us or recounting our own experiences and lives, queer art is always radical, exploratory and necessary. Luckily for us, some of the best LGBTQ art lives on Etsy, where we can bring it into our homes as well. The platform is literally teeming with LGBTQ Etsy shops and artists!
We asked the proprietors of some of our favorite LGBTQ Etsy shops about their work. Here’s what they said:
Aubergineandpeach
“I was brought up in a religious household, and this, combined with it being a time in the UK where it was illegal for schools to talk about anything to do with being gay, has meant it’s taken until recently to publicly bring this side of my life into my art,” says Matt, the artist behind aubergineandpeach.
“I like to work with very personal subject matter — drawings and paintings of people I’m hanging out with in my studio, or more recently getting inspiration from the naked selfies we all (or some of us, at least) are sending each other, little private moments of sexual confidence. Turning these images into zines and prints has been very exciting for me, to find out that people are really interested in my work and want to have it in their homes, and for me to use my art to say to other people simply ‘it’s OK to be yourself’ — it’s therapeutic and definitely has gone some way to healing my hurt from the past.”
BenSaundersArt
“My art celebrates queer bodies and highlights trans joy. This artwork came out of a need for wanting to see positive artwork that celebrates the joy queer people have for ourselves and for each other, as so much artwork focuses on the dysphoria side of transitioning, and not the euphoria and confidence we also experience,” says the Manchester, England-based artist.
“My prints also celebrate more diverse trans bodies and queer identities, as so much trans artwork highlights a certain ‘cis-passing’, skinny, white, post-op trans body, which doesn’t represent the whole trans community. I hope my art prints bring joy and representation to queer people, plus they look great on your wall!”
DannyWarhole
“My art is created out a desire for representation. I’m inspired by the art that I see in the world, but more so by the art that’s missing,” says Danny, who, as a child was captivated by the work of Andy Warhol.
“So I often go home and draw what I wish I had seen hanging on the walls of my favorite art museums. My art is part-autobiography, part-love letter, part-drag and part-homage to the past and present of gay culture.”
TheArtOfFelixDeon
“My work celebrates queer diversity, love, desire, and beauty,” Felix tells Hornet.
“While I am a queer Mexican person, the son of an undocumented immigrant to the US and also of Indigenous and European decent, my paintings encompass the full range of queer experience, and are made in collaboration with models who describe to me their experience of queerness, and how they would like to see themselves represented. My paintings are vintage in style, and suggest the queer histories we have been denied, and celebrate the stories of love and desire which could not be told in the past.”
Keantoloci
“Art is the rawest form of expression,” says this U.S.-based creator of queer, witchy creations.
“My creations are about that raw, beautiful, untamed human experience of life. Diversity is woven throughout this experience, both my own and others, and is why I never try to water down my art to make it more mainstream. Doing so would be telling a lie.”
Plantbasedprintss
“I love to make LGBTQ+ folks feel seen, with an aim to represent queerness in different bodies and forms, to show queerness and gender expression in a way I didn’t see growing up,” says this Exeter-based artist.
Rnicolestudio
“I’m a queer, poly artist and photographer living and working in Maine. Much of my work is about recognizing intimacy in all its varied forms — in small gestures, between friends, lovers, partners, strangers and family members. I highlight queer relationships because I want underserved and systemically oppressed people especially to see themselves reflected in art,” Robyn tells Hornet.
“I believe representation matters, and visibility is lifesaving, and I want to be a part of normalizing the parts of my own identity that have, at times, made me feel most ostracized. I love using bright colors and bold bodies unapologetically to this end. Queer art, and my art, is for everyone.”
(That’s also Robyn’s art as the featured image of our story about LGBTQ Etsy shops!)
