Edinburg North High School student wins Congressional Art Competition for second year

An Edinburg North High School student representing the Texas 15th Congressional District will see her art displayed at the central rotunda located inside the U.S. Capitol for a second consecutive year.

Gabriela Garza, an incoming junior, took the chance to enter a piece done for the San Antonio Livestock Show & Rodeo Western Art Contest in September 2023 in the 2024 Congressional Art Competition.

“It was surreal,” Gabriela said as soon as she got the news of her win. “At first, I didn’t really believe it.”

Although one of many pieces Gabriela has done, the art has a significant meaning behind it: portraying the ranch life in the Rio Grande Valley in a personal light.

In an array of shading and detail of color pencil, this artist captured her late grandfather in his youth on a ranch in McCook, Texas, referencing an old Polaroid photo from the 1970s.

Working with a medium such as a photograph can be difficult, as faded details on the film, such as her grandfather’s face, hands, and shading, were challenging to transfer into a sharper state.

Quick thinking, Gabriela modeled her hand to draw her grandfathers and used a photo ID to capture details vintage technology couldn’t show.

“The Polaroid wasn’t the best quality, and [the] face, you couldn’t see it,” said Gabriela. “I just kind of had to use this photo ID of my grandpa when he was younger, and the rest of it was kind of just guessing.”

Although her art took a month to finish, Gabriela had doubts, unsure if it was competition-worthy. But after feeling an attachment to such a personal piece, she continued.

“It meant too much to me to give up,” Gabriela said. “I kept trying.”

And her reason for using her grandfather as a muse? A yearning for connection and remembrance.

Gabriela’s grandfather passed away in 2021, leaving the teen to reflect on the relationship the two had despite the language barrier.

“We weren’t very close because he spoke only Spanish, and I spoke only English. There was no way of us communicating or even bonding,” she said. “To me…drawing him is a way…to feel closer to him because I never got to.”

It isn’t the first time Gabriela’s grandfather has appeared in her art, with her work that won her the title in 2023 depicting him in old age, posing with a lamb peering over its enclosure.

Gabriela’s mother, Maria Garza, said that seeing the photograph of her father as a young man brings a feeling of nostalgia.

“It was a time when I was a child when those pictures were taken,” said Maria Garza. “My childhood was all that: Ranch [and] my father working very hard as a ranch hand.”

Maria Garza also said that the piece is a connective one, showing the hard work between three generations of family.

“He worked really hard and instilled that in us. And now my daughter is also — she’s partaking in that,” she said.

Guidance from ENHS Art Teacher Manuel Saenz also helped Gabriela take a leap of faith that had her strike gold.

“This artwork right here, it’s very South Texas,” said Saenz as he looked at the replica print inside the ECISD Administration Building. “It’s very representational of our culture, of our life — the ranching culture in particular.”

Since Gabriela began her artistic journey in middle school under art teacher Adam Cantu, her skill and eye for detail have only improved in her realism.

“[I’m] very impressed with her work as a ninth grader. As a tenth grader…in my opinion, she just raised the level of the crispness of her hyperrealism,” said Saenz. “She’s at a level, in my opinion, that would be at the collegiate level, even maybe already at the graduate level in terms of how well she handles her technique.”

Saenz further referred to Gabriela as an artistic ambassador for ENHS.

“She might not even realize it, but she’s an ambassador for her school,” he said, mentioning that Gabriela’s talent has taken her art to competitions across the state in Laredo, San Antonio, and Dallas. “In the entire Rio Grande Valley, we have a student that is going to be [displaying] an artwork in Washington, D.C.”

Gabriela’s art will be hung at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., and the Garza family will see it during an unveiling ceremony in late summer.

“[Art] gives me a way to talk about things, you know, and just kind of express myself without feeling, you know, judged,” said Gabriela. “They don’t have to understand my art or like it. It’s just something I can just put out and forget about it.”