Can a material only be used for objects and not a UI canvas?

In the top left is an image, when uploaded it automatically turned into a material. After I dragged the material into the 'material' component of the UI canvas and it shows up as nothing, but a black rectangle.(Canvas is rectangular, but picture/material is not black) Please let me know if there is anyway to include a picture on a canvas. I've searched and I've come across answers referencing the 'diffuse' was set to black, but that was not a fix for my issue. Thanks in advance!