The Origin
Before it had a name, there was already a search.
When I think about the origin of Canvollage, I cannot point to a single moment. Some ideas remain within us for years before finding a concrete form. They may begin as an image, an experience, a curiosity, or a particular way of seeing that we do not yet know how to explain. In my case, some of those first images belong to childhood. I remember a bedspread made from pieces of fabric and the hands of my mother, and possibly one of my aunts, taking part in its making. I also remember a small grid that I built over the window of my room and, above all, the way light passed through those small openings and transformed the colors of the fabric pieces. At the time, I did not know that this experience would remain in my memory for so many years. Later, an exhibition called Colchas brought something connected to that memory back to the surface. The fabric pieces had been represented through drawings on paper, but as I looked at them, I felt that
stitching could take the idea somewhere else: thread could join, but it could also create tension, alter the surface, and become a visible part of the artwork. Around those years, I was also developing Descomponiendo, a series in which I explored everyday objects, their forms, structures, colors, and textures, as well as the relationships between the object, the space, and the act of looking. Although Descomponiendo was not Canvollage, that experience transformed the way I constructed and observed an image.
In 2002, in Greenwich, Connecticut, these different concerns began to come together through a material possibility. While working on canvases fixed directly to the wall before mounting them onto their stretchers, I was left with fragments of painted canvas. Rather than seeing them simply as remnants, I began to wonder what might happen if those fragments were reorganized and joined through hand stitching. The painting could be fragmented; the fragments could relate to one another in a different way; and stitching could do more than join: it could transform the surface, create tension, produce subtle distortions, and become a visible presence within the artwork. From this experimentation came Retazos, oil on canvas, 22 × 28 inches, completed in 2005, the first work I recognize as Canvollage. From there, the exploration continued. The fragments began to take on new possibilities and to relate to one another in different ways within a single composition. They did not necessarily have to speak in the same way in order to find a point of connection; color, texture, material, composition, and stitching began to establish those relationships. Dos caminos, oil on canvas, 24 × 24 inches, completed in 2006, is part of that process of discovery, bringing together different ways of interpreting the same visual experience and allowing each fragment to retain its identity while participating in a shared composition. The exploration continued with Our Heritage (2007) and Fragmentos (2008), along with Allegory, Retales y Retazos, Retalitos, Mini Retacitos, and other works that have continued to expand this search. In Fragmentos, the relationship between the parts reached another dimension: nature, life, humanity, symbols, words, time, and power began to coexist within a fragmented territory. The work allowed me to understand that a fragment could contain much more than a piece of a surface; it could carry an image, a memory, a symbol, or an idea and acquire new possibilities of meaning when it entered into relationship with others. Over time, I also came to understand that a fragment does not necessarily have to come from an existing artwork. It can be painted, shaped, and deliberately prepared for a new composition, and what remains after a piece is cut does not necessarily have to end there.
What remains does not necessarily remain behind.
Throughout all those years, the practice existed, but it still did not have a name capable of identifying it. That name appeared in 2017, during the preparation of Awakening to Art, the exhibition held on April 9 of that year at Vandana’s Awakening to Yoga studio-gallery. It was there that the word Canvollage emerged, formed from the combination of canvas and collage. The name came after the practice, and perhaps that is the most important part of its origin: Canvollage did not begin when it found its name. Its name appeared when a search that had been developing for years finally found a word capable of recognizing it. Since then, Canvollage has continued to evolve, not as a closed formula, but as a way of exploring what can happen when a painting is fragmented, when fragments find new relationships, and when an artwork can transform without losing the stories it carries with it.
A painting can change its form without losing its story.