I'm Nayeli Lavanderos, a Mexican artist based in Portugal. I draw Power Animals in black ink on paper — slowly, by hand, through a practice rooted in observation, stillness, and intuition.

My work is shaped by growing up in Mexico — by its animals, its patterns, its way of seeing the natural world as alive and interconnected. At the heart of the practice is the nahual: a concept from Mexican cosmology in which every person walks through life with an animal counterpart, a figure of inner symbolism and archetypal presence.

My path to this practice has been winding. I studied Graphic Design in Mexico City, then moved to Brooklyn for a master's in Motion Media Design. I spent years in New York's fast-paced design world, sharpening my visual storytelling, before moving to Portugal. Along the way, I trained as a shamanic practitioner — an experience that deepened my connection to Power Animals and shaped the way I understand them in my work. Life in Portugal — ocean, light, space — invited a slower way of working, and my practice shifted toward close observation, quieter marks, and more time with each piece.

The Power Animal series began during a period of personal transformation. It became a way of drawing animals as carriers of presence, memory, and quiet power — figures of intuition, strength, grief, devotion, and companionship. Each drawing is an attempt to meet that animal through line, symbolic detail, and the slow attention of ink on paper.

I've shown work in group exhibitions in New York and at Amilak Gallery in Lisbon, and presented my first solo exhibition, Sacred Power Animals, at Jardim Gallery in Ericeira in 2025. I continue to build a practice around original drawings, commissions, and occasional workshops — and toward a future of larger-scale work and deeper exhibition contexts.

What keeps me returning to the studio is something quieter than ambition — a curiosity about what these animals carry, and what it means to draw them with care. Each piece is an attempt to meet that mystery with attention, and to make something that invites the viewer to slow down and look.