The Light That Transforms Pain into Art and Resilience

Xana de Jesús

 Your work transcends the artistic; it is a cry of resilience. When did you discover that art could be your salvation?

 Since I was a little girl, only nine years old, my heart spoke through my strokes. Every line, every color, was a piece of my soul on the paper. I didn’t just draw what I saw, but what I dreamed, what pulsed inside me. It was a gift—a silent language that allowed me to show the world everything I carried within.

As the years passed, my hands became accomplices to my imagination. Crafts, oils… every creation was a whisper of my essence. A teacher saw that light in me and encouraged me to continue, and by the age of eighteen, my paintings were already in the hands of others. It was magical, but life, sometimes, puts us to the test. At twenty-three, the noise of the world drowned out that inner voice. I tried again and again, but pain and emotional storms extinguished the colors. The gift that once defined me vanished, like a brush that could no longer find its canvas.

 However, life is wise. Years later, it gave me another form of expression, a new gift that doesn’t depend on calm, but on the urgency to show the beauty I still see in people and in the world. They are no longer brushes, but it is still art. It is still me.

 On your website you mention “healing through creativity.” How do you turn pain into something so beautiful that it inspires others?

 That pain… it is not just physical. It is a silent scream that pierces the chest, digs into the soul, and suffocates every last breath. How did I manage to heal? How do I keep getting up every day?

 By turning my wound into a refuge for others. By helping, above all, those who feel too much, like I do. Because I know what it’s like to walk with your skin inside-out, carrying the weight of feeling invisible. But I chose to keep going. For two reasons that are now my oxygen:

 The first: I couldn’t be selfish. I couldn’t extinguish my light for those who love me, even when I wanted to give up.

 The second: I found my purpose. My camera became a magic mirror that reflects back to people what life has made them forget: their beauty. When someone says, “I’m not photogenic,” I whisper in their ear, “Wait until you see what I see.” And then, the magic happens. The “I’m worthless” becomes “This is me!” Insecurity fades, and for a moment, they believe again.

 I call it Phototherapy, because I don’t just capture faces… but souls rising again. And in that process, I heal too.

 You speak of vulnerability as strength. What advice would you give to those who fear showing their wounds?

 Vulnerability is an act of courage that can illuminate your path… or leave you exposed to storms. When you open your heart and show your scars, something magical happens: those who truly love you approach with hands full of light, ready to tend to every crack in your soul. But there are also others—those who, instead of seeing your pain, see only an opportunity.

 That is why being authentic does not mean offering your heart without protection. You can be yourself and still choose wisely whose hands you place your wounds in. Because not everyone is prepared to hold them with respect. True strength doesn’t lie in hiding what hurts, but in knowing who deserves to walk with you through the healing.

 If your art had a scent, a color, or a melody, what would it be and why?

 If I could enclose my art in an essence, it would be the delicate fragrance of orange blossom—pure, hopeful, with that whiteness that carries promises of new beginnings. And in the background, like an eternal soundtrack, the whispers of nature: the rustling of wind through the leaves, the distant song of birds at dawn, the serene murmur of a stream… That would be the sensory universe of my creation, where the visual merges with the emotional in an intimate symphony.

 What message would you like to leave engraved in those who read you or contemplate your work?

 My greatest wish is that, when contemplating my photographs, the heart of the viewer beats in sync with mine at the moment I pressed the shutter. That they don’t just see an image, but breathe the moment exactly as I lived it—with that pure emotion born from the deepest part of the soul. That’s why, when someone asks me what kind of photos I take, I always respond with three words that are my declaration of intent: “Photographs with essence.”

 Because it’s not about capturing the obvious, but about eternalizing the invisible: that tremor of the heart that turns a simple moment into an unforgettable memory.

 “Along your path, there were surely voices telling you it wasn’t possible to heal through art. What would you say today to those who doubt the transformative power of creativity?”

 The words that hurt the most don’t come from strangers, but from those to whom you entrusted your heart. I’ve heard them, felt them stab like knives, and even so… here I am. I reached places they said I’d never step into, exceeded my own expectations, and I keep tracing new goals on the horizon, because the limit isn’t in what others see—it’s in what I choose to believe.

 To those who doubt their own power, I would say this: Put your soul into your dreams, give them time, fight in silence even if no one sees you. The impossible just takes a little longer—but it arrives for those who desire it with authenticity. The best revenge is not resentment, but quiet work; the most powerful counterattack is getting back up again and again, and the final blow… that comes on its own, in the form of results that speak for themselves. And when that moment arrives, you’ll know. You’ll feel it in your chest: you’ve won the most important battle—the one you were fighting against yourself.

 Defeats, rejections, obstacles… they’re part of the path. We have the right to fall, to feel the weight of the world on our shoulders, to cry and wonder if it’s worth it. But only for two days. On the third day, we rise. Because nothing is given freely in this life, and true strength is not in avoiding pain, but in transforming it into wisdom. In learning to recognize opportunity when it knocks, without ever—ever—losing the humility that reminds you where you come from.

Power doesn’t lie in not falling… but in choosing always, always, to rise again.

 If you could send a letter to your “past self,” what words would you choose to embrace the person who didn’t yet know her own strength?

Sometimes I think: “Better not send this letter to destiny, because if she knew everything that awaits her, she might not have the courage to begin.” But that is precisely where the magic lies: in moving forward without a map, in embracing uncertainty as a travel companion. Every blow, every tear, every moment of darkness has been the chisel shaping my character, the forge where my courage was born, and the mirror that showed me how to become a better human being.

Today I look back and wouldn’t change a single second of the road I’ve traveled, because every step brought me here. But I wouldn’t go back either. My scars are witnesses, not anchors. My past stays where it belongs—in yesterday—while I continue walking forward, with my eyes fixed on this present that cost so much to conquer.

Xana de Jesús does not just create; she illuminates. In every word, in every stroke, there is a piece of her soul reminding us that even in darkness, beauty can be found. Her story is not just that of an artist, but of a warrior who chose to turn her cracks into paths of light. As we part, her most powerful truth continues to resonate: pain does not define us—but what we do with it does. And she, without a doubt, has chosen to be a torrent of hope.

Rilke once said that “beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror,” and in Xana de Jesús that paradox becomes truth. Because she does not shy away from pain; she embraces it, molds it, and transforms it into something so luminous that it forces us to believe in redemption. Her life is living proof that wounds, when allowed to speak, can sing. As this conversation ends, one cannot help but look at their own scars with new eyes: no longer as marks of defeat, but as possible seeds of art, of change, of legacy. Xana not only inspires us to create; she teaches us that the true masterpiece is living with open arms, even when the world asks us to close ourselves. And in that lesson, she gives us the most valuable gift: the certainty that no one is alone.