There is a moment in every pet-owner’s life when you look at your animal and you can tell they’re plotting your downfall. They watch you wield the knife and study your moves. They’ve learned how to open, close, and lock the doors. And every once in a while, you get home and there’s hell raining down over your apartment. But then, you look at them a little longer and a little baby angel face appears. This is exactly what Yamako Iona’s artwork feels like to me.
Animals move through the world as highly-studied yet completely unknown creatures. What goes on in our pets’ lives when we leave the house? What do they dream of? Are they really that dumb, smart, cute or evil? From Cujo to Cupid, Iona whimsically expands on these questions with her sketches and paintings of anthropomorphic animals. They drink hot cocoa, eat sushi, take Xanax, think they look bad in hats — all the classic human things. But every once in a while they’re performing Satanist rituals or threatening you with scissors.
Primarily focused on tiny little dogs, she instills joy and laughter in her art. At times inspired by life’s dramatic moments or using a pop-culture reference as a common touchstone for the audience, Iona recreates these scenes with the intent of connecting her audience to shared experiences. We speak with her about meaning-making in art, subverting expectations, and staying grounded in your vision.
Hi Yamako, happy belated birthday! How are you? How did you celebrate?
Thank you so much! To celebrate I took my first holiday off in over a year and went to Japan, where I have friends and family. I went all out and had multiple celebrations including going to theme parks and Osaka. A particular highlight was visiting Shigaraki town – where the raccoon dog tanuki ceramics are made. I also spent the month doing mundane things that interest me like spending time in junk shops, hot springs and staring at dogs in the park.
What has this last year taught you?
It has been a very strange and surreal mental whiplash transitioning into a very different path, though equally one full of significant personal growth. Although I’ve been making art my whole life, making a living from it has been a recent thing. Last year was my first year doing this full time. Prior to this, I worked as an occupational therapist in the National Health Service (NHS). Going from a structured routine with a defined progression pathway to essentially having free rein of my day with no guaranteed outcome has been challenging as someone that struggles with fluctuating motivation, self-discipline, and organisational skills. Working in the NHS and social care is very emotionally demanding. You face a very confronting reality dealing with the most vulnerable members of society and see the grim outcomes of government and institutional policy in action. In comparison, many aspects of art feel very frivolous at times.
Has how you feel about it changed?
I’ve also shifted my perspective a lot. I carried a lot of guilt leaving my previous career. I’ve always been driven internally by meaning and connection rather than arbitrary societal markers of success. Part of my choice to work in healthcare was that it felt tangible and real and like I was making a difference. The idea of sitting in an office, no matter how well paid, was off putting to me. I considered art to be much in the same vein and considered it self indulgent to a certain degree.
But when I posted about my soul cat dying earlier last year, I received a flood of messages from people. Many shared the ways in which a specific work spoke to them or reminded them of a deceased friend or pet. I cried when I read someone felt the spirit of their dead dog living on in one of my paintings. It didn’t hit me how far stuff had spoken to people in ways I had no idea about. So it added a layer of feeling that there was a purpose beyond myself.
But when I posted about my soul cat dying earlier last year, I received a flood of messages from people. Many shared the ways in which a specific work spoke to them or reminded them of a deceased friend or pet. I cried when I read someone felt the spirit of their dead dog living on in one of my paintings. It didn’t hit me how far stuff had spoken to people in ways I had no idea about. So it added a layer of feeling that there was a purpose beyond myself.
“I feel using animals as a conduit for human melodrama adds a layer of humour and surrealism.”
I love the little creatures you sketch and paint, they’re so fun, especially with your captions. I saw it’s been over ten years since you first began. What first inspired you to draw them?
Thank you. I joined Instagram to post art ten years ago but I’ve been creating art a lot longer than that. I have been an animal lover since birth – raised by a big brother Airedale Terrier and my extended family had many cats, dogs, and birds. As animals were my first friends, naturally they became the first subjects I chose to draw, from the moment I was able to hold a crayon.
The first animals I ever drew were horses followed by cows and insects. I also painted a lot of humans, which I’d like to explore again, but anthropomorphic animals are where I feel happiest. They often come from my own observations either of myself, people and animals around me that I know or see in passing. Some are playing into old tropes stored in our collective consciousness from films, literature, social media, memes. Some are snippets or melodramatic reenactments of scenarios and conversations in the past but diffused into a lighthearted or comical situation. I still have a lot of memories from my time in customer service that I still want to draw out as a series using dogs (laughs).
The first animals I ever drew were horses followed by cows and insects. I also painted a lot of humans, which I’d like to explore again, but anthropomorphic animals are where I feel happiest. They often come from my own observations either of myself, people and animals around me that I know or see in passing. Some are playing into old tropes stored in our collective consciousness from films, literature, social media, memes. Some are snippets or melodramatic reenactments of scenarios and conversations in the past but diffused into a lighthearted or comical situation. I still have a lot of memories from my time in customer service that I still want to draw out as a series using dogs (laughs).
Great! What else inspires you?
Artists like Louis Wain, Walton Ford and Hokusai and Hiroshige’s animals undoubtedly made a huge impression on me in my teenage years. I feel using animals as a conduit for human melodrama adds a layer of humour and surrealism. Though, I also think we’re not all that different from them. I’m inspired a lot by words and songs; particularly specific melodies or song lyrics. Probably more so than visual imagery. Yesterday, an image of a bald chihuahua lying down in a dirty suit outside the job centre came to me after listening to David Bowie’s Ashes to Ashes from the line “I ain’t got no money and I ain’t got no hair”.
At present, I think it's safe to say I’m known for my small dogs. I tend to get very fixated on particular animals and draw them obsessively until I lose steam and progress onto the next fixation. My love of small dogs stems from the fact I feel they are my spirit animals. I have also been referred pejoratively by people in my life as having small dog syndrome. My whole life, to this present day, I have been infantilised against my will or perceived as a soft target by complete strangers. I still carry a lot of pent up rage about this, being called cute is a micro-aggression for me (laughs). I’d argue I’m a lot tougher than I appear so in that sense I really resonate with the spirit of small dogs.
At present, I think it's safe to say I’m known for my small dogs. I tend to get very fixated on particular animals and draw them obsessively until I lose steam and progress onto the next fixation. My love of small dogs stems from the fact I feel they are my spirit animals. I have also been referred pejoratively by people in my life as having small dog syndrome. My whole life, to this present day, I have been infantilised against my will or perceived as a soft target by complete strangers. I still carry a lot of pent up rage about this, being called cute is a micro-aggression for me (laughs). I’d argue I’m a lot tougher than I appear so in that sense I really resonate with the spirit of small dogs.
Why do you make your drawings kind of creepy and endearing at the same time?
There are definitely many works I create with the intent of being endearing. And of course some works I make explicitly creepy and sinister, though outside of that, I don’t particularly aim for it to come out in the way it does. It’s feedback I got as far back as twenty years ago even with my human subjects. That being said, I’ve looked back at some of my older works and became seriously concerned about what was going on in my head at that time. Maybe there's some inner angst spilling out that I’m not aware about.
I stalked your Instagram a bit and found a lot of other creepy and mysterious things like aliens, the Michelin man, and Five Nights at Freddy’s-looking characters. I would love to know what your favourite conspiracy theory is and what conspiracy theory you would choose to describe your work.
My favourite conspiracy theory is the dead internet theory though at this point I no longer feel it's a conspiracy (laughs). In terms of one to describe my work… maybe relating to some streams of thought that the animals we keep as pets are intergalactic agents sent to observe data about humanity and report back to aliens. I definitely feel they are a lot smarter and more intuitive than they let on. I have no doubt they laugh about us behind our backs. Maybe I’ve captured what they secretly get up to either here on earth or on another spiritual dimension we are none the wiser to.
You’ve been making and selling prints for a while now, including for Creepmas, and it’s quite clear that all the logistical work falls on your shoulders. What has this taught you?
What put me off pursuing the path of a full time artist for a very long time was navigating the business aspect. On one hand making art is slow, entrenched into your soul and unquantifiable. Yet the world of selling it means you have to look at numbers, demand and arbitrary time constraints which, over the long run, can feel a bit soulless.
Another reason I decided against pursuing art as a job was being a pragmatic and anxiety-prone teenager who was more concerned with being able to pay my rent. I went to art school for a year and saw the writing on the wall. Cronyism is notoriously rife in this sector and, as someone who didn’t have connections or generational wealth to fall back on, even just one year in that environment reinforced to me the idea that this was not a viable path for me. Social media wasn’t as it was now so this wasn’t an avenue I considered then. However, with time, I realised no job is certain and guaranteed. It no doubt helps I have transferable skills, more maturity, and savings that gave me that additional mental security in case it all went wrong.
Another reason I decided against pursuing art as a job was being a pragmatic and anxiety-prone teenager who was more concerned with being able to pay my rent. I went to art school for a year and saw the writing on the wall. Cronyism is notoriously rife in this sector and, as someone who didn’t have connections or generational wealth to fall back on, even just one year in that environment reinforced to me the idea that this was not a viable path for me. Social media wasn’t as it was now so this wasn’t an avenue I considered then. However, with time, I realised no job is certain and guaranteed. It no doubt helps I have transferable skills, more maturity, and savings that gave me that additional mental security in case it all went wrong.
“I’m also a human interconnected and shaped by the same rubbish system we’re all stuck under so it’s not a coincidence that someone will see something I made and connect with it somehow.”
How do you as an artist and manager of your own brand deal with stolen imagery of your work on social media, Etsy, etc.?
I believe most artists who post online acknowledge and accept that this is a risk that will happen when posting online. The speed at which images are shared and duplicated online are physically beyond anyone's control. Unfortunately, there is a lot of ignorance amongst the general public, many individuals who take images don’t seem to do so with any ill intent or don’t realise these companies are using stolen images so the most I can do is spread awareness about it.
Of course, accepting it doesn’t mean resigning or accepting defeat. I generally do not hold back on calling this out when it’s a company that does this. I also find they are the nastiest to deal with when confronted, though I guess it comes with the territory of thieving behaviour. Thankfully there is also growing awareness and many small voluntary organisations and services that are there to help artists in these particular situations. I’m also really thankful many supporters look out for artists too and they tend to report or spam under the comments too when it happens.
Of course, accepting it doesn’t mean resigning or accepting defeat. I generally do not hold back on calling this out when it’s a company that does this. I also find they are the nastiest to deal with when confronted, though I guess it comes with the territory of thieving behaviour. Thankfully there is also growing awareness and many small voluntary organisations and services that are there to help artists in these particular situations. I’m also really thankful many supporters look out for artists too and they tend to report or spam under the comments too when it happens.
What is your favourite part of seeing people interact with your art – whether in an exhibition, online, or as customers?
I think my favourite is seeing people laugh and smile. Or coming up with a better comeback or joke or play into the scenario. I appreciate when people share relevant anecdotes and life stories, the more bizarre the better. I also don’t take offence when people dislike it or pull a strange face. In fact, a part of me probably thrives a little on negative attention as there's still an element of an inner teenage edgelord living inside of me that's yet to heal.
There's a lot of seriousness in art and though it has its place, I like that I can use it in a way to laugh or diffuse tension in otherwise annoying situations. Humour is definitely a coping mechanism for me and I find it hard to take anything seriously, sometimes to my detriment. It doesn't always land well in real world situations. In that sense I’m glad my art has connected me algorithmically with people on the same wavelength, it also makes me feel less alone!
Of course, I try not to create with an audience in mind. I feel that’s when you start disconnecting from the work that makes it distinctly you. But I’m also a human interconnected and shaped by the same rubbish system we’re all stuck under so it’s not a coincidence that someone will see something I made and connect with it somehow. Sometimes one piece resonates with a larger crowd, sometimes just one person but either way I always love knowing it has meant something to someone in whatever way possible.
There's a lot of seriousness in art and though it has its place, I like that I can use it in a way to laugh or diffuse tension in otherwise annoying situations. Humour is definitely a coping mechanism for me and I find it hard to take anything seriously, sometimes to my detriment. It doesn't always land well in real world situations. In that sense I’m glad my art has connected me algorithmically with people on the same wavelength, it also makes me feel less alone!
Of course, I try not to create with an audience in mind. I feel that’s when you start disconnecting from the work that makes it distinctly you. But I’m also a human interconnected and shaped by the same rubbish system we’re all stuck under so it’s not a coincidence that someone will see something I made and connect with it somehow. Sometimes one piece resonates with a larger crowd, sometimes just one person but either way I always love knowing it has meant something to someone in whatever way possible.
What is next for you?
The main focus for me at present is continuing to make work. And lots of it. And experimenting and mixing things up too. I struggle with idea overwhelm as opposed to creative blocks and the list of things I want to create is never ending. My brain is constantly cluttered and arguing amongst itself. Another thing I’ve been meaning to build upon are my animations! I have so many original storylines and epic sequences in my head I’d love to focus on those at one point.
