Queer people have long contributed enormously to the fabric of our community through work that adds texture, vibrancy, and contemplation to our lives. To honor those creative efforts locally, below is our seventh annual survey of LGBTQ artists in Wisconsin.

As always, this is by no means a completely comprehensive list. We reached out to our various networks for names and resources and did our best to contact each artist for updates. Entries are made through a form where participants are free to choose a category, self identify, and provide a description in their own words.

Thank you to everyone who participated and shared our form with their networks. We hope to continue building on this in future years, so feel free to reach out with recommendations at [email protected].

Burlesque & Drag
Comedians, Dance & Theater
DJs & Musician
Literary
Visual Arts, Crafters & Makers

Get on the list!

To be included in our next directory, fill out our artist form here.

Visual Arts

Adam Raiford Wilson | @adamraiford | Adam moved to Madison from Arkansas in 2020. Adam’s multimedia projects include “found item” style incorporations with layers of paint.

Angela Richardson | angela-richardson.com | Richardson’s work often explores the idea of “community.” As a teaching artist, she’s led classes at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, Center for Healthy Minds, Madison Children’s Museum, and Madison Public Library.

Anna Campbell | annacampbell.net | An artist and professor, their sculptures, installations, and ephemera mine history and queer desire.

Ari Gochberg | @ari.g.ink | Ari is a white, trans, and autistic tattoo artist at Red Clover Tattoo Collective who focuses on fine-line illustrative works in black and gray or soft colors. He draws inspiration from manga and anime, botanical illustrations, mythology, art history, queer sexuality, and the human form.

Babette Wainwright | babettewainwright.com | As a youth, Babette exhibited at the Centre d’Art of Port au Prince, Haiti. Her work has been shown in Baton Rouge, Atlanta, Washington D.C., Chicago, Iowa, North Carolina, and Madison. She makes clay sculptures informed by her African roots and the work of the pre-Colombian people of Haiti, the Arawaks.

Bear Cunningham | redclovertattoocollective.com | Bear is a queer tattoo artist at Red Clover Tattoo Collective specializing in fine-line minimalist and illustrative design. They love working with a range of subject matter from florals, pop culture references, celestial bodies, and occult imagery, to pin-ups, portraits, and anything involving queer forms and identity.

Bernie & Zuzu | bernieandzuzu.com | Bernie Witzack is the current Artist-in-Residence at Pinney Public Library. They believe everyone deserves to have more beauty and joy in their lives, adding it through hand painted, printed and dyed home goods, accessories, and prints.

Beth Racette | bethracette.com | Beth’s visual art spans a variety of media—acrylic ink paintings, sculptures, and installations. Since 2010, she has been working on a series called Gaia, in which she explores Earth as a living being. She has also worked on an extensive exhibition in which she examined the U.S. prison system as a legacy of slavery.

Bigblurrypaintings | @Bigblurrypaintings.bsky.social | Projects include abstract imagery oil paintings, glass mosaics, woodcarvings. All works are available through Arts for All Wisconsin.

Bryon L Hobbs Photography | bryonlhobbsphotography.com | Bryon is a photographer in Madison who specializes in creating compelling urban landscapes, nature images, and concert photography.

Carmen “Rain” E. Schwierking | caramelcocooncreations.com | Rain runs their solo illustration and craft studio, Caramel Cocoon Creations, which is focused on creating art of nature, fantasy, food, and Queer Pride. The motto is “A Little Art For Everyone” and they strive to have diverse, inclusive, and sustainable products.

David Wells | David is Curator of Edgewood University Gallery and Director of Ernest Hüpeden’s Painted Forest, a Kohler restored folk art site in Valton, WI, hosting summer programs in art, music concerts, and star-gazing events.

Elaine Pasinski Thomas | Elaine is a visual artist, painting portraits and landscapes in oil and acrylic. Elaine’s paintings are of elderly, disabled, poor, and oppressed persons in a manner that compels the viewer to see the subjects’ humanity.

Geoff Staub | instagram.com/Geoff.paints | Paintings featuring and focused on “Love” in American Sign Language, LGBTQ+ Pride, Deaf Culture, addiction, equality, oppression and suppression.

Janis Nussbaum Senungetuk | jnscreativevision.com | After 40+ years of fine art education/working in a variety of mediums and exhibiting, Janis is now working in fine art photography with a focus on florals, farmers’ market imagery, and backyard critters. Janis’ images are included in the collection of various hospitals locally and in Europe.

Jess Draws | bumblechub.com | Jess, aka bumblechub, loves making drawings, collages, and zines centered around weirdness, justice, and bugs.

Joel Bell-Duffrin | jbelldg.com | The founder and creative soul behind J Bell Design Gallery, Joel is a seasoned photographer and graphic designer who blends emotion, light, and texture into black-and-white, abstract, and mixed-media works that stir the senses.

Karin Wolf | Karin serves as the Arts Administrator for the City of Madison, curating events, running grant programs, and advocating for all things arts and artist. She goes to neighborhoods for local art projects to learn the community’s concerns then addresses them through art.

Kelly Jane Goodman | cara.app/kjgoodman | Kelly Jane Goodman is a 2-D visual artist working primarily in paint and ink. Her work focuses on therapeutic pieces regarding mental health and her sexuality. A select number of her works are currently available at Stay True Tattoo in McFarland. She can be found at various fairs in the Madison area.

Kimberly A. Blanchette | kimberlyblanchette.com | Kimberly is an author (poetry, plays, inspirations), artist (painter, photographer), activist, officiant, and comedienne. Kimberly currently resides in Janesville with her wife Colleen and is a member of a local comedy improv troupe called Steadily Improv’ing.

Lisa Kidd/The White Dog Studio | thewhitedogstudio.com | Lisa’s voice as a contemporary, abstract, expressionist artist using mixed media is influenced by feelings and nature. Lisa paints the rhythm of life’s emotions; blemishes, vulnerabilities, joy, challenges, and the pursuit of beauty in every experience and the opportunities to continue life’s journey.

Lois Bielefeld | loisbielefeld.com | Bielefeld’s work explores identity, family, and daily rituals through intimate, conceptual photography. Blending portraiture and documentary, she examines how personal and collective routines shape belonging, gender, and community—transforming the ordinary into visual reflections on human connection and individuality.

Mar Gosselar | @theseboneshavefeelings | Mar (they/them) is a white, queer, and mad artist. They strive to engage with tattooing at Red Clover Tattoo Collective as a consensual, trauma-informed practice that centers collaboration and the client experience. They make art inspired by vintage illustrations, woodcuts, naturalist paintings, pattern-making, and their clients’ input.

Melanie Renee Photography/Dulcy Dog Photography | melaniereneephotography.com | Weddings, people, branding, and lots of dogs. Melanie’s also a regular Our Lives contributor.

Michael Velliquette | velliquette.com | Velliquette is an artist internationally renowned for his intricately crafted works in the medium of paper. Cut and assembled by hand, Velliquette’s works can take hundreds of hours to complete. They are at once abstract forms made from colored paper, and also structures that from one moment to the next suggest fortress-like constructions, tiered mandalas, or complex mechanical gears.

Nicole Bresnick | nicolebresnick.com | Nicole Bresnick paints in a way that puts positive energy into the universe. She practices this, but is also developing her darker side with what she calls “Forbidden Art,” which purposefully flouts artistic and community norms to carry its message.

Nykoli Koslow | instagram.com/nykoli.koslow | Nykoli is an artist working in the realm of painting and drawing, fusing figuration with abstraction to explore notions of gender, sexuality, and agency. Part autobiographical and part research-based, his work pulls from ancient history, mythology, religion, mysticism, and a kind of theoretical physics infused with sci-fi.

Radillustrates | radillustrates.com | Rachal A Duggan is an illustrator and author. She draws butts, comics, pets, people, houses, and so much more. When she’s not creating illustrations, she teaches drawing workshops to all skill levels. Interested in having her draw Booty Portraits at your wedding? Reach out for details!

Rae Sowards | instagram.com/raesowards | An author, poet, and fine art photographer with a special focus on shooting with film and in black and white. The photos are often beautiful and gritty at the same time, showcasing deeply personal reflections on identity, location, class, and more.

Rolando Cruz | An award-winning artist and photographer, as well as an ardent runner, who frequently explores issues of identity and race through his work.

RothePrints | ingridrothe.smugmug.com | I seek to make photographs that are interesting and inspire curiosity and awe. My subjects are the world around me, including landscapes, wildlife, city life, and architecture. My outlook is Midwestern, but I try to do justice to other parts of the world as well.

Rufus Jupiter | rufusjupiter.com | Rufus Jupiter (they/them) is a queer- trans multidisciplinary artist living in the rural Driftless region. Their creative practice combines ecological inquiry, improvisational movement, visual imagery, collaborative partnerships, and play. A founding member of WEdances Movement Collaborative, they also instigate local queerspace dance parties and host a community radio show under the moniker Titmouse.

Sarah Stellino | Sarahstellinophoto.com | Sarah Stellino uses imagery to explore intimacy, identity, and legacy. Her photographic practice is greatly informed by using a view camera, and she continues the craft and care of each photograph by creating prints by hand in the darkroom. She is driven by a deep sense of the importance of record-keeping and legacy-making and the impact that can have on future generations.

ArtofScottJones | instagram.com/scott_steven57 | Scott is a painter who celebrates life, art, nature, and beauty.

Shawpawprints Watercolor | instagram.com/shawpawprints | Ashley Shaw Adams is a watercolor artist who paints what she loves…and she loves a lot of things! Each of her pieces is inspired by her life, her friends, her family, and her preferred methods of escapism.

SNollPhotography | snollphotography.com | Artistic photography of people, places, and things. Specializing in portrait, boudoir (all genders), events (theatre, drag), and sports.

The Art of Dena Tullis | linktr.ee/denatullisart | Dena Tullis is a southern Wisconsin-based artist who loves to share her whimsical ideas. You may find her and her art at conventions around the Midwest, local Wisconsin markets and festivals, or even hidden in a planter at an amusement park.

Trans Artists Collaborative | TheTransperience.com | The Transperience is a multi-media, digital immersive art installation and experience that shares the amazing real life and stories of transgender persons. Installations have taken place at UW-Green Bay Weidner Center for the Performing Arts, St. Norbert College, UW-Green Bay Student Union and The Brown Co. Neville Public Library.

Paul Baker Prindle | paulbakerprindle.com | Baker Prindle’s images build on the traditions of portraiture, but quickly confound those traditions by using index, vernacular conventions, and the landscape to evoke impressions of the body that go beyond what is visually represented. Currently he is the Gabriele Haberland Directorof the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art.

Penumbra Photography | behance.net/gallery/165739817/Familiar-Strangers | Penumbra offers documentary, street, and event photography. Exhibited in: Wisconsin Photography 2024, Racine Art Museum; and Photo Midwest Biennial 2024, Madison. Penumbra is interested in documenting unusual events, people, places.

Vintage Lulu & Vintage Moon Photography | vintageluluphotography.com | Vintage Lulu & Vintage Moon are trans- and queer-owned. With a blend of artistic storytelling and a playful, vintage aesthetic, we strive to create timeless images that reflect your unique personality and style.

Vivienne Timchenko | innovatsia.com | Vivienne is a Qartveli-American, queer, multidisciplinary artist. Within Timchenko’s work, she shapes and synthesizes themes of purpose, peculiarity, and protest. She describes her art as a loving, labyrinthine, labor of life.

Woody Olsen | woodyolsen.com | An abstract painter, his acrylic, watercolor and mixed media paintings are rendered in bright, floating, overlapping metallic colors. A graduate of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, his work has been in juried shows throughout the Midwest.

Crafters/Makers

After While, Craftodile | afterwhilecraftodile.com | Geometric mobiles and sculptures inspired by folk-crafts and the full moon. Think Himmeli, Pajaki, Puzurs, etc., things for your mantle, altar, home, and life. Made of a combination of things: Brass tubes, nylon string, beads, crystals, love, and attention. They are sparkly and pleasing to the eye in the light.

Angie & Kal Jones | itsjustus.shop | Angie and Kal are a mother and son company that takes resin and digital art and mashes them together. Kal paints and draws while Angie does the rest. They do custom colors, ideas and painting to customers’ liking and put things together to make happiness.

Bruce Seeds | bruceseeds.com | Bruce is a former architect who has been making quilts since 2008.

C3 Designs | facebook.com/AwardWinningFineJewelry | Chris is the owner of C3 Designs, a fine jewelry store in South Milwaukee that specializes in custom design. He has been designing jewelry for more than 20 years and is the recipient of more than 30 design awards. All his designs are handcrafted to the highest standards.

Darn Queers/Universal Friend | facebook.com/groups/930631423985133 | Kandra is a sewist and multimedia artist living in Madison. They co-founded the monthly queers sewing/fiber arts meet up Darn Queers. Kandra likes to paint, cook, and make apparel. Need a live event painter or a custom garment made? Reach out!

Haus of Ogé | instagram.com/hausofoge | A Wisconsin fashion brand created by Jinx and Micah Ogé, the brand features signature designs with a strong emphasis on LGBTQ+, drag, non-binary, femmes, and more—from high-fashion echoing pop culture, ‘80s and ‘90s trends, barbiecore and futuristic-themed looks, and beyond.

 Jennifer Froh Jewelry | Jenniferfroh.com | Jennifer creates colorful anodized aluminum chainmail jewelry and sterling silver wirework jewelry—and Pride jewelry all year round. Custom designs welcome!

Mindfully Inspired | artwithoutjudgment.com | Mindfully Inspired is a gallery-style art collective retail shop featuring 40+ Wisconsin artists. Our eclectic and often upcycled or reimagined art includes small gift items, jewelry, home decor, and furniture.

P&S Glassworks | @p.s.glassworks | Established in 2023 by a gay couple who make stained glass pieces, P&S Glassworks would love to bring some more color into your home! DM on Instagram for commissions.

Queer Suave By Niko | queersuavebyniko.square.site | Niko is a queer trans man who runs a fashion house that specializes in making garments and leatherwear including harnesses, collars, and more for the queer and trans community to their exact measurements. I strive to give clients the most euphoria I can.

Scott by Design | linktr.ee/ScottbyDesign | Scott by Design’s creations reflect their love for body inclusivity, neurodiversity, queerness, thrifted finds, and all things unique. Abbey specializes in stunning artificial floral wreaths and wall hangings, while Haley’s artistic pursuits are wonderfully eclectic—spanning painting, collaging, drawing, and more.

Spicy Squirrel Creations | Creator/owner Melvyn Marcum (he/him) works with wood and leather, but also creates paintings, jewelry, and upcycled items to keep the spicy (ADHD) brain happy. He is currently working on small, carved animals/figures and by commission only.

SR Robinson | suebob.net/Beads_and_Such/0beads_talismans.html | An eclectic mix of ceramic beads, talismans, mugs, plates, tiles, and bowls.

Red Mitten Games | redmittengames.com | Red Mitten Games is fresh off the fully funded Kickstarter for the board game Five By Five, which is being sold in shops around the Madison area.

The Rat Tail Taxidermy | linktr.ee/therattail | The Rat Tail specializes in ethical and sustainable taxidermy such as bone art, wet specimens, traditional mounts, and pet memorials. The Rat Tail is trans/queer-owned and they are always looking for new projects, opportunities, and friends!

WisMx Zines & Art | Myranda (they/them) loves to find creative ways to recycle and reuse broken toys and other unwanted items into jewelry and art pieces. They also write a personal zine about rural life in Wisconsin as a plus-sized, queer person and their orange cats.