For Brazilian artist Jenifer Prince, she didn’t know that there was LGBTQ+ art while growing up. All she knew was that people that weren’t straight, they weren’t welcome in her community. They were ostracized. So she fought with what she knew to be true about herself. She was a lesbian.
“I’m from a small town in Brazil. It’s really small like 50k yeah and it’s in the very interior countryside of the state, so very conservative,” Prince told Remezcla, “And I had zero references of gay people. All the gay people that were out were ostracized and called you know all the names and people saw them badly. So I’d go, “No, I’m not that. I can’t do that. So I’m definitely straight.”
And she internalized that. Prince added, “When you’re growing up and people are telling you all the time that the life that you want to live doesn’t exist or you’re gonna suffer or something really bad is gonna happen if you kiss a girl. That kind of gets to you. And you end up internalizing that.”
For many in the Latine queer community, this is a familiar story.
We grew up in an environment where LGBTQ+ people were seen as the villain in the story or othered. And it leaves you feeling like if you choose that path, you won’t have the love of your family, you won’t have a happy life, and you won’t make anything of yourself. For Prince, art helped her build a community that helped dispel those myths for herself and for those that have never seen sapphic art like hers.
Going to college to become a graphic designer helped give Prince perspective as she was surrounded by new people. But it was her gap year in the U.S. that really enlightened Prince and took her down a path where her art could be a viable career. “I went to the US [for a gap year] over in San Francisco. So you know it’s the gayest city in the U.S. and that was when I saw people living off of art and making a living with it and being proud of that. And specifically gay art, that was something that I hadn’t seen before here in Brazil other than you know college projects and stuff.”
When she returned to Brazil, everything changed for her. Because once you see that you can have that life, especially through art, you start healing. You also start creating. And for Prince, she started creating lesbian art. “When I came back from the U.S. with ideas and doing stickers to sell through the university. And my lesbian friends were trying to sell them because I’m super shy. […] They were really supportive and they were giving me ideas for t-shirts and prints and everything.”
Years later and her work is a masterclass in intimate lesbian/sapphic art that she wishes she had growing up. And it’s a way of rewriting her past and creating the future she was told she couldn’t have if she was with a woman. Her art has also dipped into popular ships like Francesca and Michaela from Bridgerton, Daphne and Velma from Scooby-Doo, and even Korra and Asami from The Legend of Korra. And it has amassed her over 300k followers who love her art and have formed a community around it.
For Prince, drawing lesbian art about her favorite shows or movies comes from her love for romance. But it also comes as part of her education in understanding that our communities, we’ve always been here. And we’re creating these spaces for ourselves in hopes of making others feel seen and less alone too. “TV shows and movies and queer TV shows and queer movies, especially the sapphic ones, were so important to me because I didn’t have those real-life representations when I started to come to terms with my sexuality.”
“[It’s the] first thing we do, you know? You start to look for all the lesbian content you can find just to see what this thing is,” Prince added. And it was through this lesbian content on TV that she really started asking herself and answering, “What am I? How am I supposed to act? How am I supposed to ask a girl out and stuff like that?” These LGTBQ+ movies and shows “were really special to me and really important for my understanding of who I could be.”
Now Prince is paying it forward by creating her own work grounded in the soft and intimate moments of the characters she saw on her screen, in San Francisco, or even based on her own experiences. Her art, “It’s me it’s who I am.” And now “When I’m drawing something romantic, I’m doing something that I lived with my wife or with a girlfriend from before or you know something that I’m now feeling. So it all comes from me, from what I’ve experienced as a lesbian woman.”
In 2026, Prince’s work is seen all over the world. She’s illustrated book covers, people have tattooed her work on their bodies, and she’s even worked with brands like Chrome Industries to create pieces that are part of your everyday. They collaborated on a 2026 Pride Collection that features her iconic vintage sapphic designs on their bags and more. And a portion of the proceeds from this year’s collection will be going to Casa 1, a shelter for LGBTQIA+ youth in São Paulo.
For Prince, this is another career milestone. Because she grew up fighting with herself and couldn’t see “gay people in a light manner or having a happy life or just kissing and joyful. Or even holding hands.” Now she’s not fighting anymore. She’s creating lesbian art for herself and for her community with the knowledge that she can have that happy life people warned her she couldn’t.
That’s why lesbian or sapphic art means so much to Jenifer Prince. “I’m sure my life would have been so much easier and I would have been so much more prepared to deal with a lot of things that came after [if I had lesbian art]. That’s one of the reasons why it’s important for me to make lesbian art.”