Gem D'Souza

Gem is an illustrator and graphic designer working in Brighton. She earned a BSc in product design, but was attracted to illustration for the sheer scope of creativity it allows her.

With several years' experience in commercial design, illustration and traditional oil painting, Gem has completed an impressive range of projects with brands such as Tesco, Aldi and Slush Puppie, and organisations like Beyond Brighton, a media group focusing on fundraising, activism and education for transgender people.

She works digitally and with traditional hand-drawn techniques to create colourful, expressive images of the human form. She explores body shapes, producing pictures of a diverse range of people, often queer or people of colour, or both.

By night, Gem performs in a clown persona on the Brighton drag scene – she feels this gives her creativity another outlet which complements her art.