As part of Pride celebrations, we wanted to give the LGBT+ community the opportunity to have their art featured on the cover of GCN’s biggest issue of the year. We held an art competition inviting creators to respond to the theme of Pride and what it meant to them.

As you will see on the following pages, the entries we received were of an exceptional standard, so much so it was a very difficult process deciding on just one beautiful piece of work to grace the cover.

So the first time ever (as you will have already seen by now) GCN has not one, but two, beautful cover images. Two very different artists will share the Pride cover and we’re delighted to have them! Here we feature further examples of their work as well as all the other amazing people who submitted entries. Congratulations to all the creators and thanks for making this one of our best Pride issues yet.

Gabriel

Marques

Front Cover

Why did you choose this particular image to send in?

I tried my best to keep in mind the Pride Month theme in Dublin - Rainbow Revolution - adding all the LGBT+ references and the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, but I didn’t want it to be too obvious, so theres a subtle reference to this in the tattoos. The idea of the tattoos is to celebrate Pride with symbols and characters from the LGBT+ community marked in our skins. Overall, I thought it would be a great image to celebrate Pride festival month whilst giving a nod to its history.

Could you tell us about its creation?

I wanted the final image to be meaningful to the people who came before us, the ones who went on the street and fought for our rights, and to show two very colourful contemporary men kissing and showing their love for each other. All the accessories and decorations are symbols of celebration and happiness. To come up with this image, I hand drew them on a paper and designed the tattoos separately, after scanning all the drawing material I digitally composed it all together and finished the final rendering on the computer.

What kind of work do you create usually?

I work mainly with illustrations and design, and love to combine both and make it enjoyable. I try to always work with independent music artists creating EP covers and art videos for their social media but I’m open for any art commissions (painting, tattoos, illustrations) for anyone who loves art and/or wants to give art as a present, I love working on portraits but also love fantasy art. Being able to create and illustrate something that comes from my imagination combined with someone else’s idea is a great feeling.

What does Pride mean to you?