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Camila Garcia, a graduate of Immaculata-La Salle High School, poses with her charcoal portrait “Old Man,\u201d which was honored with first place in the Congressional Art Competition for Florida’s 27th Congressional District. Her painting will be on display in the U.S. Capitol’s Cannon Tunnel for the next year.<\/p>\n
COURTESY<\/p>\n
MIAMI | Immaculata-La Salle High School (ILS) graduate Camila Garcia is the first student from ILS to win the Congressional Art Competition, taking first place in Florida\u2019s 27th Congressional District with her charcoal portrait \u2014 \u201cOld Man.\u201d<\/p>\n
The competition, also known as the Artistic Discovery Contest, is held each spring by members of the U.S. House of Representatives to recognize artistic talent among high school students nationwide. Camila\u2019s district win was announced at a gallery exhibition hosted by U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar at her Miami district office April 1, 2026.<\/p>\n
The competition is run separately in each of the nation\u2019s 435 congressional districts, and only one student per district is named the overall winner each year. Camila\u2019s win puts her among a few hundred students recognized nationwide annually, out of the thousands who compete each spring.<\/p>\n
\u201cOld Man\u201d will hang in the U.S. Capitol\u2019s Cannon Tunnel for the next year alongside winning artwork from congressional districts across the country and will be featured on the House Congressional Art Competition website. This summer, Camila and her father traveled to Washington, D.C., on June 25 for the exhibit\u2019s opening reception at the Capitol Visitor Center, where she was recognized among the national winners.<\/p>\n
\u201cCamila has a God-given talent \u2014 an artistic eye,\u201d said Elena Capablanca, who taught Camila in ILS\u2019s dual-enrollment classical drawing and painting class. \u201cShe is patient and perseveres through a piece. She\u2019s learned to gravitate toward graphite, charcoal and traditional oil paints, and she has definitely developed her own eye for proportion and texture.\u201d<\/p>\n
Capablanca said the strength of \u201cOld Man\u201d lies in Camila\u2019s control of a difficult medium. \u201cCharcoal requires an exceptional level of control and precision, and it can easily smudge, yet Camila handles it with remarkable confidence,\u201d she said. \u201cBeyond the technique, the portrait captures a genuine emotion through her composition, pose and cropping choices. The sensitivity she shows in rendering details, from the texture of the hat to the subtle tones of the skin. All of these details reveal an artistic maturity well beyond her years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Capablanca requires her students to enter local and national art contests each year, and Camila entered several pieces throughout her senior year. \u201cIt\u2019s incredibly rewarding to see students believe in their abilities, put themselves out there and embrace opportunities to shine,\u201d Capablanca said.<\/p>\n
Camila\u2019s win reflects the reach of ILS\u2019s broader art program, which spans both traditional and digital media \u2014 from dual-enrollment drawing and painting classes to STEAM-based digital arts coursework. Student work is showcased each year at the school\u2019s ArtWalk exhibition, where Camila displayed a wider collection of portraits alongside \u201cOld Man.\u201d<\/p>\n
Camila graduated from Immaculata-La Salle in May 2026 and attends the University of Florida, to study biotechnology.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Camila Garcia, a graduate of Immaculata-La Salle High School, poses with her charcoal portrait “Old Man,\u201d which was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[3087,28,123,125,124],"class_list":["post-400155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-art","tag-florida","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}