Studio Bara is an informal collective & label. It brings together creators who share a same artistic sensibility around homoerotism, gathering them around illustrated and printed projects such as books, posters, exhibitions, and animated GIFs.
The collective also actively participates in creative events and key gatherings within the LGBT+ cultural scene.
Studio Bara was created in 2014 on Tumblr by illustrators Paul Burckel and Antoine Maillard, joined by their friend Estocafich.
The original idea was to imagine a creative playground for homoerotic drawing at a time when the genre still lacked plurality—a true visual laboratory, free from the constraints of commissioned work and the traditional publishing world.
The project was born out of a shared passion for alternative illustration and Japanese gay manga (Bara), which was being popularized in the West at the time by the (much-missed) New York publishing house MASSIVE.
Over time, a singular visual grammar emerged from this initiative: a soft, tender, playful, and subtly irreverent approach to male eroticism, offering a fresh perspective on the male body through a colorful, pop, and benevolent aesthetic.