About

Diego Morales-Portillo (Guatemala City 1992) is a multidisciplinary artist and designer originally from Guatemala, living and working in Portland, Oregon. His work examines labor, migration, and the structures of global production. Working across sculpture, ceramics, installation, painting, and video, he creates intentionally “non-functional systems” that expose the contradictions embedded in dominant narratives of universality.

As an immigrant from Guatemala, Morales-Portillo’s practice is shaped by his experience within systems that position the Global South as a site of production for Western consumption. His work foregrounds labor not only as a material process but as a historical condition—one that he reclaims through acts that are at once absurd, critical, and deeply personal.

Morales-Portillo graduated as a bachelor in drawing at the National School of Fine Arts of Guatemala in 2010, in 2015 he received a bachelor’s degree in graphic design and advertising with a Cum Laude degree from the Universidad del Istmo. In 2019 received the degree of Master's MFA in Visual Studies at Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, OR. Morales-Portillo has presented his work in Argentina, El Salvador, Guatemala, Italy,South Korea, Spain and the United States in exhibitions such as 2017 Pacific Standard Time LA/LA; Mapping Narratives:New Prints 2021/Winter at the International Print Center in NY (2021);auction and exhibition of Latin American art Juannio 2013, 2016, 2017, 2020, 2022, 2023. His work is in public collections such as Neo-Murales of the Rozas Botran Foundation and Imago Mundi of Luciano Benneton in Italy and Portable Works collection of the Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) in Portland, Oregon.

Morales-Portillo has been selected for artistic residencies at The Studios at MASSMoCA, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, and Vermont Studio Center. His awards include Second Place in the 2017 Juannio Auction of Latin American Art, a Full Fellowship at Vermont Studio Center and MASS MoCA supported by The Ford Family Foundation, the Precipice Fund from PICA and The Andy Warhol Foundation.

Publications and Press

Portland’s GLEAN art exhibit ‘gives new meaning to garbage. Koin 6, Text by Michaela Bourgeois, Aimee Plant. Link
Portland Artists Only Use Dump Material for Exhibition. Corryn Pettungill. Link
Banana Craze, Diego Morales-Portillo. Link
Omens of Capacity, Oregon Contemporary, Link
Beyond Frida Kahlo: Four Latino artists using art and identity in powerful ways, The Oregonian, 03/12/2022. Text by Bianna Miller. Link
Visualizing Spaces, New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art, University of Southern Indiana Link
Ventanas del Tiempo, Fundación Rozas-Botrán, ISBN 978-99939-0-384-0 Link
New Ownership Eutectic Gallery. Link
New Ownership: The first NFT backed ceramics exhibition in Portland, Oregon, Ceramics Now, By Ashley Gifford Link
New Ownership at Eutectic Gallery, Variable West Link
Structures, A Gallery Link
Mapping Narratives New Prints 2021/Winter, Lisa Hunt Link
Mapping Narratives New Prints 2021/Winter, International Print Center (IPCNY) Link
Exquisite Scrolls: Collaborative Drawings for the Pacific Northwest College of Art, Art Focus, Link
Exquisite Scrolls: A Benefit for PNCA Equity & Leadership Scholarships. Link
Diffusion, volume 10, One Twelve Publishing. 2021. ISBN# 978-0-578-83612-6. Link
Small by Design, Art in America, December 2019 issue. By Bean Gilsdorf. Link
2019 Radicle Magazine, Collaborative Design + MA in Design Systems. Portland, Oregon
Guatemala from 33,000 km: Contemporary Art, 1960 – Present by Rosina Cazali, Escobar. Black Dog Publishing. 2018, London, UK. ISBN 978 1 911164 47 0
Landlocked - Ow(n)ed is half art show, half book club by Shannon Gormley, Willamette Week Vol 44/13 January 24, 2018, page 48. Link
2018 Precipice Fund Grant Recipients, Portland Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA) Link
Y el Verbo se Hizo Poema... Co-author. 2015, De Museo, Guatemala, ISBN 978-9929-40-783-1
Zona Íntima Co-author. 2016, De Museo, Guatemala, ISBN 978-9929-40-880-7
¿Y esto es Arte?... Author, Text in Altum Magazine No.11, 2017. Universidad del Istmo, Guatemala. ISBN 2305-3267. Link
Guatemala: Memory and Timeless Avant-Garde - Imago Mundi. Text by Luciano Benetton, David Urbina, Thelma Castillo, Diego Ventura Puac-Coyoy. 2016. Fabrica. Italy Link
Dentro de la mente y el arte de Diego Morales Portillo. Text by UNIS. Link
Lanzamiento de poemario ilustrado por alumno de Diseño Gráfico. Text by UNIS. Link