"Siempre volver (Always Return) by Carla Querejeta-Roca

Gallery wall text translations

Carla Querejeta Roca .
Visual Artist | Spain – France – Morocco

Born in 1979 in Pamplona, Carla Querejeta Roca explores identity, space, and memory through a three-dimensional body of work at the intersection of painting, sculpture, and textiles. By sewing and tearing her own canvases to create "textile sculptures," she transforms matter and conveys the imprint of her journeys between Paris, Madrid, and Tangier.

TANGIER: Anchorage and Creations

"Much of who I am was formed in Tangier. Tangier is part of my artistic identity."

As the city of her family roots, Tangier serves as an ongoing point of return and a creative laboratory for the artist. Between its intense light, the chergui wind, and its blend of cultures, she draws her colors, textures, and creative freedom from the city.

BACKGROUND & EXHIBITIONS

A graduate of the Fine Arts Academy of Madrid (2002), her work is regularly exhibited across Europe and Morocco (notably in collaboration with the Cervantes Institute). Her artworks are held in several public and private collections, including the Royal Collection.

Q & A

1.⁠ ⁠Where or to what place do you always return when creating?
You return to the deepest part of your soul. To that place where you are authentic.

2.⁠ ⁠Fabrics, worn wood, fragments... Why choose materials that already have a history?
I choose materials that already have a history because they carry the traces of time, wear, and passage. I don't only use worn materials, but I always destroy before rebuilding. I see this destruction as a transformation, not an annihilation. It represents human vulnerability—my own vulnerability—which turns into strength through the act of rebuilding.

3.⁠ ⁠What does Tangier represent in your personal and artistic geography?
Tangier represents a fundamental place, both in my personal and artistic geography. I always say that I carry Tangier in my veins, Tangier in my paintbrushes. It is the place of a happy childhood, of my roots. The place of my eternal return, my happy place, where I am more myself than anywhere else.

Tangier is part of my inner space. It is present in how I understand the world and in how I create. It is the meeting point between memory, identity, displacement, and belonging.

4.⁠ ⁠Derrida showed that deconstruction allows meaning to be revealed. By breaking the rigid frame of painting, does the fragment become more alive and true to you than the whole?
Yes. In a way, the fragment can become more alive because it preserves the traces of what was destroyed. Thus, the fragment reveals another truth of the artwork: that of its history and its transformation, elapsed time, memory, fragility, and strength. By bringing the material and its wounds to the forefront, it reminds us that there is something deeper than representation itself.

Interview with Carla, September 2026,
Interview conducted by Khalil BOUANANI