What She Could Hold, She Could Speak
Childhood Art by Jacqueline Luna
In this deeply personal collection, Jacqueline Luna invites viewers into the raw, instinctual beginnings of her artistic practice—where expression was not a luxury, but a necessity. Created between the ages of 12 and 14, these early works were made not with career ambitions, but with spontaneity and a kind of joyful compulsion. They were a fun, daily ritual, made without the artist fully realizing how pivotal they would become in shaping her future.
Using whatever materials were available—sticky paper or index cards, crayons, oil sticks, pastels, watercolor, color pens, and more—Luna created hundreds of drawings and paintings. This exhibition presents just a small selection of that expansive body of work.
Each piece captures a moment of emotional immediacy, layered through mediums that speak in different registers: the resistance of crayon, the weight of oil stick, the softness of pastel, the fluidity of watercolor, the sharpness of pen.
At age 17, Luna was discovered by the PATRONATUS Fine Art Society, who recognized in these modest beginnings the emergence of a singular artistic voice—one that mirrored her inner world with clarity, vulnerability, and depth. The unassuming drawings, once made for no one but herself, became the key to her recognition as a serious young talent.
In What She Could Hold, She Could Speak, you’re not just looking at childhood creations—you’re witnessing the quiet foundation of an artist’s voice. These works, made without pretension or awareness of their future weight, are now understood as early declarations of a lifelong calling.
