Portland-Based Artist and Designer Champions Queer and Immigrant Rights
Portrait of Heldáy de la Cruz. Credit: Adolfo Cantú-Villarreal.
Heldáy de la Cruz (b. 1991) is an interdisciplinary artist and designer. Having moved to Portland, Oregon in 2011, he has thrived in the city’s art scene since. De la Cruz works primarily with graphite, producing illustrations that often grapple with his intersecting identities as a queer Latinx man and recipient of DACA (Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). His powerful portraits feature hyper-realistic faces juxtaposed against minimal, simple surroundings. Other works display details of the body (a man’s back, for example), close-up and with dramatic shading, making them appear almost abstract. His work is intimate, capturing physical embraces and ranges of subtle, private emotion.
In 2017, de la Cruz formed UndocuPDX with eight friends. The awareness-raising collective worked to find resources and funding for undocumented Portlanders in need and educated the larger community about the complexities of undocumented identities. One year into Donald Trump’s presidential administration, they organized an art show that raised money for three organizations at the local, regional, and national levels—Pueblo Unido PDX, Oregon DACA Coalition, and United We Dream. De la Cruz illustrated and interviewed ten DACA recipients, and the event raised $16,000. “There were a lot of threats being made to folks of my status, so it felt like the time to act, and a lot of people showed up,” he said.
Heldáy de la Cruz, QTS Poster. Courtesy of the artist.
Since then, de la Cruz has continued to raise money for crucial causes. In 2018, he curated the first edition of QTS, or Queer Typography Show, showcasing a range of queer graphic designers and raising money for Portland’s Q Center. Each designer made ten posters that all had the word “queer” featured, experimenting with different typographic elements. This summer, in the second edition of the show, titled QTS.02, the funds raised were directed to the Cascade AIDS Project.
Accessibility is tantamount to de la Cruz’s artistic ethos—he’s eager to have his exhibits be free or affordable. “Most of the shows I’ve done here have been self-initiated and supported by community, friends, and organizations that just want to show up,” he continued, “It’s been a good place to have that freedom to explore.”
Heldáy de la Cruz. Self Portrait in Desierto a Desierto. Courtesy of the artist.
Less interested in breaking into the gallery world, de la Cruz prefers to put on shows through support of friends, and mutual aid. That said, he commends Portland galleries for making themselves more accessible to the city’s population. “I’m watching more art spaces be more generous with the way they want to show up for communities, because I think they want to be incorporated into those communities versus thinking of themselves as outside it,” he said.
Portland has been lucky to see many collaborations with de la Cruz. Before getting hired full time as the environmental nonprofit Ecotrust’s senior designer, he freelanced, always working for local businesses and individuals he respected most. He designed staff T-shirts for the beloved torta restaurant Güero, the album cover for Portland-based band Sávila, and created promotional materials for a local sustainable agriculture group called Culinary Breeding Network.
Heldáy de la Cruz. "No Justice, No Peace" T-Shirt Design. Courtesy of the artist.
De la Cruz also designed a shirt with “No Justice, No Peace” inscribed on the back during the worldwide protests against racist policing and brutality in 2020, and he donated one hundred percent of the profits to the Portland-based mutual aid initiative Black Resilience Fund. The next year, de la Cruz made a new batch of shirts, and donated to Pueblo Unido, and the following year, to Indigenous Women Rising, the only national abortion organization for native women. This year, he made tees that state “Palestina Libre,” with the proceeds going to several Palestinian families with roots in Portland.
Heldáy de la Cruz. Palestina Libre Poster. Courtesy of the artist.
As the design director and co-founder of Provecho Magazine, de la Cruz brings together his love for food, storytelling, design, and community. The first issue is already out and available for purchase online, and the second issue will be released later this fall. Look out for Provecho, and de la Cruz’s work on his Instagram (@siguele.cabron), where he shares all of his projects, fundraisers, and events.
