Camila De la Fuente, better known as @CamdelaFu, is a Venezuelan-Mexican artist, illustrator, cartoonist and journalist. Her art highlights issues that make us uncomfortable, denounces injustices, makes us laugh, and makes us think. And with every post, she reaches over forty thousand people through her impressive Instagram follower base.
Camila was born in Caracas, Venezuela, but comes from a family of migrants on all sides. “I am a mix of many countries,” she told IQLatino. Her father’s side comes from Argentina, and her dad retains a mixed accent and pride in his Argentinean traditions. Her mother was born in Germany, and her maternal grandparents were from Germany and Brussels. Her great grandfather was Mexican, which is why her and her family emigrated to Mexico City, where they currently live. She holds Venezuelan, German, and Mexican passports.
Though from all over the world, her family of migrants all have something in common: they fell in love with Venezuela, and felt more Venezuelan than anyone, Camila told us. She herself took part in the Venezuelan student movement that led the 2014 massive street protests and demonstrations that were violently repressed by the Maduro regime. Like many Venezuelans, that same year Camila had to leave her home country to look for better opportunities and for her own safety.
In Mexico, Camila has worked in media outlets like Rolling Stone, Hotbook, and El Universal. In 2016, she won third place in the category of animation in El Universal’s National Cartoon prize. In 2018, she was a finalist in the first Illustration Biennial of Mexico. And this year, she won the Youth Award in the first International Women Cartoonist contest. She has also been experimenting more with illustration and different techniques to express herself beyond traditional cartoons, she explained.
While her art was previously more heavily focused on political issues, she has since opened up to many more issues that affect us all, she said, though her art and the purpose behind it is especially focused on human rights. Camila was co-director of Cartooning for Peace’s program, “Drawing Peace and Democracy,” in prisons and schools in Mexico. In 2018, they were invited to UNESCO to speak of their work in Latin America.
Camila’s growth as an artist is reflected in her extensive social media follower base. “Social media has been an important window for me, not only for me to show my work but also for me to look through it and meet incredible people,” she explained. “It has been a way of exchanging ideas, of information, of growth.”
But there have also been difficulties and challenges along the way. “The hardest thing in this job is financial stability. It is a roller coaster, there are good months and there are bad,” she said. But though it is a long and slow road that requires lots of patience, following her passion has paid off. “You are finally so happy doing what you love that you are willing to live those most difficult months with a smile. Fortunately, I am already seeing the positive results of hard work, and there is still a long way to go,” Camila told us.
As for advice to fellow Latino artists, “be patient and believe in your work,” Camila said. “Inspiration is everywhere, the only way to find those amazing ideas is working and working. Experiment with different arts, talk to people that think differently, read a lot, be curious,” she advised.
“And, over all, always ask yourself: How much of all the work you are doing is to make the world a better place?”
Check out some of CamdelaFu’s work below, learn more about her on her website, and follow her art on Instagram and Twitter!
Photo: Periodico Milenio