Alek.

In his story, Alek left Heimaey at seventeen, at night, on the ferry that crosses to the mainland in half an hour. He stood on deck watching the island shrink, steering by the harbor lights growing over the black water. As a kid he'd done the opposite every August: returning baby puffins that the village lights had confused back to the sea. The portrait doesn't tell that story; just his face, front-on, calm, with the orange-and-gray beak. The story of the island, I'll tell you in his biography.

With Animal Kinhood I've spent years portraying dressed animals with the jobs and lives of ordinary people: here, one who fixes engines and boat hulls in an old northern harbor. Alek is one of them, and this print pulls him out of his story and puts him in your home. I created it front-on with a clean background: on a wall it reads from a distance and asks for nothing around it, and the matte finish doesn't glare. I sign every portrait in the series myself, Yago Partal; if you like how it looks, you'll find the rest of the collection in the shop.