About Yago Partal.

Biography

I'm Yago Partal. Drawing was my refuge long before it was a career. Growing up in an environment where exclusion, bullying and violence were the norm, putting pencil to paper gave me a small pocket of calm — no grand artistic ambitions, just survival. Then, as a teenager, a spinal tumour complicated everything for several years, between surgeries and rehabilitation, isolating me even further. Instead of pushing me away from making things, that period drew me deeper into imaginary worlds and character creation. During high school, photography became the centre of my work: I realized I could capture — or even invent — the characters and atmospheres that had only existed inside my head.

Over time, mixing photography, illustration, photomontage and digital editing became my natural way of working. I've never locked myself into a single polished style; the real thread has always been experimenting with whatever technique I could get my hands on. That approach led to a lot of projects that many people found confusing or hard to categorize. While others chased "coherence" or a clear direction, I kept jumping between media, trying to give shape to ideas that appeared in my mind without warning.

It was in that context, almost by accident, that I developed what I first called Zoo Portraits — later renamed Animal Kinhood. The idea of "humanizing" animals by dressing them in everyday clothes was just another experiment. But it went viral, unexpectedly. Before I knew it, I was exhibiting in Toronto, London and Tokyo and collaborating with brands like Adobe and Apple — doors I never imagined would open. It also let me bring in a conservation angle, working directly with people who protect the species we share this planet with.

Still, my work goes beyond those fun, accessible portraits. I've also made more personal and darker series — around the uncanny, the queer — all rooted in my own experience: being autistic, facing a spinal tumour as a teenager, spending years feeling like I didn't fit anywhere. All of that shows up in the mix of warmth and strangeness that runs through my images.

Today I'm in a more stable place: I'm a father, I pay more attention to the technical side of each project, and I present my work in more structured, formal series. But I still believe that what's different or unusual deserves space. My purpose is to share images that spark curiosity, empathy, or even discomfort — convinced that diversity, in all its forms, is deeply human. For me, art is still a way to experiment, to channel what I carry inside and, above all, a reminder that unexpected beauty can live in the strange.