Gabriela Guizzo, a senior at South Side High School, earned a spot in the 2025 Nassau County High School Juried Art Exhibition for her striking colored-pencil self-portrait.
Guizzo began the piece over the summer, determined to create a final, portfolio-defining work that showcased the skills she has developed throughout her artistic career. A dedicated IB Visual Arts and Art Explorations student, she displayed her portrait at the Art Guild of Port Washington, where it was publicly exhibited on Nov. 2.
Her work stood out among submissions from across the county, highlighting both her technical ability and her emerging artistic voice. Guizzo said her goal for the piece was to fully capture the anatomy of a hand.
“I've never really done any drawings where a hand is a main focal point,” Guizzo said, adding that she wanted to “really push the saturation with the colors and get all the textures of the skin.”
That dedication to technique drove her creative choices and fueled the more than 100 hours she invested in the portrait over the summer.
“I chose fine pencils because of the amount of precision you can get with the details and the really fine lines,” she said. “But I think I'm inspired by a lot of portrait artists.”
Keith Gamache, Guizzo’s art teacher, said he recognized her talent from the start. He recalled first noticing her work as a freshman, when one of her pieces was displayed in the hallway by another teacher.
“Her work just instantly stood out then, and continues to stand out from her peers,” Gamache said.
He explained that the piece featured in the Guild exhibition emphasizes her strengths, praising her hyper-realist style and remarkable level of detail.
“She's drawn down to the pores in the skin when you look at it closely,” he said.
The portrait, created entirely with colored pencil, is not only technically impressive but also “emotionally powerful.” Gamache added that her art is “flawless, really for her age and surpasses most people in general.”
Jill Guizzo, Gabriela’s mother, said she recognized her daughter’s talent from the moment she could “touch crayons.” As she watched Gabriela’s skills develop, she noticed early signs of the photorealistic quality that now defines her work.
“Even at a very young age, she was able to be more realistic than you would expect,” Jill Guizzo said. “I think the moment I realized, ‘Wow, she is a portrait artist,’ was when she found my favorite photo of my two girls and painted it so incredibly beautifully.”
She was referring to a portrait Gabriela created of Jill’s daughters, Gabriela and her sister, Paloma.
Guizzo’s artwork has earned multiple honors from the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards in both 2024 and 2025, including Silver Keys for her pieces “First Place” and “Above the World” in the drawing and illustration category. She also received honorable mentions for three additional works, further highlighting the consistency and range of her artistic talent.
