Spotlight: Top 10 LGBTQ+ Creators Under The Radar
To celebrate Pride Month and all of the amazing creators we’ve come across we’ve put together a list of under the radar creators from the LGBTQIA community.
The list features a diverse group of individuals who identify as a part of the community one way or another. We have included artists from photographs, graphic designers, singers, writers and much more. Please keep reading to get to know these up and coming artists!
Yen Strange
Yen Strange is an up-in-coming Sydney-based musician new to the alternative pop scene but has surely gained our attention. The Moruya-born artist is releasing her debut single, “Donnie Darko,” on June 23rd, which is said to have been inspired largely by her small town upbringing and the challenges she faced struggling to fit in. "Donnie Darko," places honest, vulnerable songwriting front-and-center, its cathartic lyrics capturing Yen's past experiences with depression and mental illness. She comes face-to-face with her inner demons in layers of first-person songwriting, influenced by the hit film itself. In the truest form, “Donnie Darko,” puts into perspective the fight we take when struggling with negative thoughts, and overcoming the feelings of never being good enough.
Hannah
As a cis bisexual woman, Hannah, a 21-year-old digital artist from Hamilton Ontario, enjoys creating art on her IPad using an app called Procreate. Ever since she was young, she has been a lover of many different art forms including drawing and painting. With finding inspiration through the media, music or even creations from other artists, Hannah has now grown an audience of over 300 followers on Instagram and wants to continue using her social media to reach many more. With a long term goal of one day owning her own shop where she can display her pieces for purchase, she is fulfilling her current goal of stricting emotion and reactions from her audience by creating simple yet stunning drawings.
Jackie Simons
Jackie Simons is undeniably a creative and musician like no other. Her artistry defies the norm - her work fusing a multitude of genres and influences that range from Frank Zappa to Tori Amos. Dubbed, “the queen of micropop,” her instagram is filled with concentrated, hyper-stimulated pop songs (paired with brightly colored cartoons or videos), that bend the very traditions of what pop music is formatted to be. At the same time, Simons has also recently released her most iconic album to date, dillydally, with Newlywed Records. At its core, it is a dazzling array of confessional and dynamic songwriting; songs navigating through themes of mental health, gender exploration, and sexuality. It is a spark of pure genius, and we cannot wait to see what she does next.
Jake Pearce
Jake has a following of 15.4k on Instagram and 405k on TikTok. A lot of the time, their illustrations translate into tattoo designs for many people. Finding inspiration through Avatar: The Last Airbender, Studio Ghibli and Victorian artists such as Hogarth and the queer coded work of Aubrey Beardsley, Jake took art into their own hands, quite literally! After throwing themselves into art when the pandemic hit, they re-ignited their passion for creating. With many upcoming projects, and focusing more on creating art that showcases the idea of gender and sexuality as a whole, Jake’s devotion to art doesn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon.
Dez
Prolific and experiential writing at the forefront, Dez’s (also known as @heart.pixie on Instagram) poetry speaks for itself. Often exploring themes surrounding the revelations of girlhood, love, and mental health, their words cut through the core with a remarkable use of literary prose and emotion. In April, they released their chapbook, Dead Girl Walking, which was a personal project consisting of drawings and artwork, poetry and prose, and photography - bound by hand by Dez themself. If you want to check out more of their work, they can be found writing for AntiFragile Magazine!
Séréna A. Jenna
With 25k followers on TikTok, Séréna A. Jenna is not only a bilingual writer/ poet, but they also identify as a nonbinary lesbian. Using they/them pronouns, Séréna, started to pour their heart into their writing at the young age of 11. Throughout the years they have been able to publish a small collection of poetry with a company local to them, was hired to publish their poems in the French newspaper “L’Aquilon”, has done work for CBC, a handful of magazines from Quebec and a couple of festivals. Séréna has talked about sexism, homophobia and transphobia throughout their many poems.
Gregory Foster
A force to be reckoned with, Gregory Foster seems to do it all - by day, he is a spiritual leader and practitioner of reiki, using his platform to create and share insights on growth, meditation, and personal recovery. With knowledge in tea ceremonies, he also provides tools to self-heal through herbal methods and reflection. Within his downtime, he is an incredible artist - his work taking the form of David Hockney-esque portraiture, recycled material macrame, photography, zine-making, and writing. He is also the owner of The Holy Male Magazine, devoted to producing a platform for queer writers and creatives to discuss spirituality, sexuality, and religion.
Mady Young (@y0urfavorieleo)
Mady has just over 1000 followers on TikTok and has been writing music for more than two years, even though they have had this passion for as long as they can remember. With the talents of playing the guitar and ukulele, Mady writes all their own songs as well and has a goal to record them in the future. With the majority of their music being about astrology and bisexuality, Mady has recently gotten into a specialized school for arts where they hope to continue to create music and follow their dreams.
Victoria (@silversnowcreations)
As art is an outlet for many, crocheting is an amazingly positive outlet for this artist! Using it to express creativity, Victoria finds it calms them down and regulates their emotions in a “socially acceptable” manner. With their current goal of spreading positivity through creating art as well as raising money for different mental health and neurodevelopmental organizations of their choosing, they also hope that their special and unique rainbow earrings will bring attention to and uplift the LGBTQIA+ community.
Tina Vaden
Tina Vaden is a visionary - a true creator at heart. Once a writer for Nylon, now a freelance director and editor, their work spreads from editing the BTS video of Debbie Harry’s photoshoot for Nylon, to most recently directing the music video for actress and musician Kat Cunning’s new single, “BOYS.” Vaden uses their platform to create a safespace for queer and marginalized communities, helping represent the diversity and beauty of the these communities that are so often erased, exploited, or hardly interspersed into the media. Their work is so deeply personal to who they are and what they stand for, their messages of inclusiveness something that is so incredibly needed within the current state of our society. Through their lens, they are helping to swift the perspective for all - and we are here for it! We cannot wait to see what they do next!
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From Pavietra 🕊️ https://t.co/BXVgWlZud8 -
slowthai by Rosie Matheson 🤩 https://t.co/z7SDfFQ5iF
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RT @i_D: Ian Kenneth Bird photographs young punks on Polaroid: https://t.co/MKT0tMUqO9 https://t.co/a0tTl12ML5
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RT @AnOtherMagazine: #DreamHome – this isolated idyll in the mountains of Lanzarote 🌵 📸 via Nowness, photography by Clemence Blr 🔁 https://t.co/GUusdxD0cg
