Bethany Gabrielle is an illustrator and comic artist born and raised in California’s Bay Area. Taking what she has learned from growing up as a young Latina queer woman and living with depression and anxiety, many of her pieces focus on these lessons from her life. Self-discovery, overcoming obstacles, inner strength, love between family, friends, partners and the self, and always trying to be better than who you were before are her most prominent concepts shown throughout her art, between both her illustrations and comic work.

 

     Bethany’s history of being an acclaimed artist dates all the way back to kindergarten and has stretched to her being an award winner of the James O’Keefe Comic Contest hosted by Diablo Valley College, three years in a row. Her passion for storytelling-driven illustrations and comics started from her fascination and adoration of children’s illustrated books and animated films and expanded to reading graphic novels in high school.

 

     Finally, in 2018, Bethany published her first comic, Connections, a short memoir about her depression and how her relationship to writing and art helps her stay afloat and connect with others in ways she typically feels unable to. Since then, Bethany has published four other short comics; another memoir called Journey of the Heart which talks about her discovering her bisexuality and first relationship, an original short story inspired by her personal passion project she runs with several friends, Welcome to Riverview’s Prologue: Knock on the Door, and two other comics titled Oh Klahoma and Achreon, also taking place in the Welcome to Riverview project. Bethany has also made a series of comic strips called The Untitled Series taking a comedic turn on the simple things in life while also at times confronting hard moments of depression and anxiety, hoping that her honest explorations will help others. Her illustrations have been featured at Diablo Valley College’s art gallery during their show, Ofrenda in 2019, celebrating Día de Los Muertos, and California State University Fullerton's Associated Students Inc. Fall 2021 Student Art show. Just as in her comics, her focus on love, mental health, and change is prominent in many of her illustrations. In 2020, Bethany received her Associates in Arts degree in Fine Art from Diablo Valley College with honors. Currently, she is a transfer student at California State University Fullerton studying for her Bachelors degree in Fine Art with a concentration in illustration and planning to attend California College of the Arts for a Masters in comics.