Working in richly layered textile collage, Paulina Constancia’s MOMents traces the quiet, intricate rhythms of care that shape daily life. It reflects the resilience and sacrifice woven into motherhood, where countless acts, often unnoticed, carry profound significance. Figures unfold across her compositions in vibrant, stitched narratives: multi-armed caregivers balancing domestic tasks, tender classroom scenes, and moments of rest and connection, each image conveying emotional complexity and devotion. Through bold colour, pattern, and hand-stitched detail, Constancia brings the labour of nurturing into clear and deeply felt focus.
Rooted in her experience of early motherhood while living far from extended family, these works draw from memory, distance, and cultural continuity. Scraps of fabric, repurposed and reassembled, become vessels of meaning, symbolizing routines, gestures, and fragments of lived experience. The resulting compositions feel both intimate and universal, honouring mothers, caregivers, and guiding figures across generations and geographies. As Constancia reflects, “these small, everyday acts of care… quietly form the foundation of who we become.”
Extending beyond the gallery, Constancia invites audiences into this process through her Stitched MOMents Workshop on May 5, where participants create their own textile-based reflections. Like the exhibition itself, the workshop offers a space to pause, remember, and transform personal experiences of care into shared, tactile stories: continuing the thread between making, memory, and community.
ABOUT Paulina Constancia
Paulina Constancia is a multidisciplinary naïf artist, storyteller, and community arts facilitator based in Canada, originally from Cebu, Philippines. Working primarily in textile collage and mixed media, she creates vibrant, narrative-driven works using salvaged fabrics, stitching, and layered materials. Her practice bridges personal memory with collective experience, exploring themes of caregiving, migration, family, and the quiet significance of everyday life. She is also a mother to a teenage son, and two beloved cats, an experience that continues to inform and deepen her perspective as an artist.
Her work has been exhibited internationally, including participation in the International Meeting of Naïve Artists in Slovenia and recognition at the Art Naif Festival in Poland, where her work was selected for a cover image. She recently presented a retrospective at the Musée international d’art naïf de Magog in Québec. Originally part of the traveling exhibition M.O.M. (Moments of Motherhood), shown across six Asian countries, Indonesia, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines, this collection now continues its journey in Canada, where her work is recognized for its warmth, storytelling, and cross-cultural accessibility.
Alongside her studio practice, Constancia is deeply engaged in community-based art. Through workshops such as Stitched MOMents, she creates inclusive spaces for participants of all ages and backgrounds to explore storytelling through textile and collaborative making. Her practice reflects a commitment not only to art-making, but to fostering connection: inviting others to engage with memory, care, and creativity in meaningful, hands-on ways.
