Samantha Go, a 12th grade Visual Arts Major here at OCSA, is one of the winners of this year’s Congressional Art competition.

The Congressional Art Competition is a nationwide art competition for high school students that is sponsored by the U.S. House of Representatives. This competition takes place every year during the spring and encourages artistic talent around the nation. Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic they haven’t been able to hold the yearly competition since 2019.

She submitted her piece along with other Visual Artists at OCSA. When the pandemic started, Congressional Art sent all of the pieces back except for hers. “Apparently, they really liked mine, so they just kept it all this time and resubmitted it for this year’s contest [2021],” she explained when asked about the story behind the piece.

The history behind the winning piece “We’re Extra” by Samantha Go started back in 2019, when she was in 10th grade. During one of her art classes, she was given an assignment to create a piece of her own. Go created a piece that “represents Florida.” She painted a woman next to a crocodile holding oranges in its mouth. “I used glitter to represent how Florida is the sunshine state… it was a very expensive piece just from all the glitter,” she stated. Overall, it took Go about “the normal amount of time given for an assignment… around a week or two,” to finish the piece.

“It feels surreal, like I’ve never won something big like a Congressional Competition,” said Go about her win.

Once again, congratulations to Samantha Go on winning the Congressional Art Competition!