Brushstrokes Into The Soul

By Alexandra Zodda

Photography by Tomoko Rahenkamp

At the end of the 2024-25 school year, seventeen-year-old Byram Hills High School student Angelina Nie, a junior at the time, brought home her final assignment—a 3’ x 4’ three-dimensional four-foot-thick fiberglass heart sculpture she had yet to complete. The heart, part of the 2025 Armonk Outdoor Art Show’s public art installation, the first of its kind in Armonk, is one of twelve that will be displayed around town from the end of August through the end of the show on September 28. Out of the twelve artists selected to design a heart, Nie was the only student. “It’s a great honor to be making work alongside professional artists,” she says. “It’s very exciting.”

The heart, which illustrates a young girl looking up at paintings in an art booth, is merely one of Nie’s many artistic accomplishments. Her graphite drawing titled “Awaiting” received the People’s Choice award in the 2024 iCreate competition. The piece, featuring a little boy holding his hands together over his mouth while staring longingly at the viewer, is “about hope and the harsh realities of the world,” says Nie. The painting also won a Gold Key in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards in April 2024 and hung at The Bruce Museum in Greenwich from June 11 to September 1, 2024. Additionally, this past March, her acrylic painting “A Moment in Time” was one of 83 pieces (from a pool of over 2,400 submissions) selected for display by the National Art Honor Society (NAHS) Juried Exhibition. The self-portrait shows Nie holding a camera over her face and smiling at the viewer and is, in her words, “about slowing down and appreciating the little things that matter in life.” Nie is also a member of her school’s varsity track and cross-country team, played violin at Carnegie Hall three times in 2022, and, as part of the Winners Concert competition in 2025, won honorable mention in the Young Artist category.

Nie’s fiberglass heart for the Armonk Outdoor Art Show.

A nomadic start

Because of her father’s work, Nie has had to move around the country a lot. Still, art remains constant for her. She was born in Shanghai and moved to Ann Arbor, MI, at three years old, and started her art journey young. One day, her mother saw her drawings of princesses and decided to sign her up for art classes. Over a decade later, and she still feels a strong pull toward visual art. “I think it’s amazing to be able to draw what I picture in my head.”

Three years later, when she was seven, her family moved to Richland, WA, and then to Middleton, WI, two years later, at age nine, where she says she stayed long enough to make her first lifelong friends. In 2021, right before eighth grade, Nie moved to Armonk, which she says is her favorite, and it’s where she lives today.

In each town, Nie studied art, and as she’s moved, she’s taken the skills she’s learned with her. “The people I met along the way definitely influenced me,” she says. Her first teacher in Michigan taught her in a “traditional Chinese art style,” primarily involving watercolor on xuan paper, which she describes as “a very different style of art.” While she doesn’t use watercolor as often today, her Eastern Asian heritage can be seen in many of her works. In one self-portrait, titled “Take It,” Nie is holding a pork bun out to the viewer, a nod to her Eastern Asian culture.

Her second teacher, from her time in Washington, changed the game. “He was the one who exposed me to a variety of different mediums and taught me how to do a lot of landscape drawings,” she explains. “Starting from normal oil pastels, he taught me basic techniques and more general skills, like composition and how to get proportions right without grids.” During this time, she focused a lot on drawing references, a basic skill all artists must master. These lessons would set the foundation for her art today.

While she doesn’t remember her teachers in Wisconsin, she does remember the ones in New York. That’s where Nie began to take more agency with her art. “I started becoming more independent,” she says. And while she still wanted guidance, she says she “didn’t need a teacher to teach me how to do everything.” This independence blossomed during her time at the Katonah Arts Center, where she started painting portraits from still life, which she’s won many awards for. Nie’s portraits have consistently captured the judges’ attention, thanks to her ability to emphasize human emotion and the inner self. Her vibrant colors and flowing brushstrokes bring her characters to life while adding a touch of impressionism.

“I started experimenting with portraits simply because I was interested,” Nie says. “And I’ve gotten a lot better.” After switching to a teacher with more structured lessons, she achieved one of her more notable artistic honors. “My Chinese art teacher helps all his students create a piece for the Scholastic Art & Writing competition,” Nie explains. Nie opted to submit two paintings: “A Moment in Time,” where she’s holding the camera, which received the Gold Key award, and “Take It,” which received an honorable mention. The former is one of her most profound works, displaying the need to take a moment to pause and reflect on life. Nie stands clearly defined in the center, with a blurry, bustling crowd behind her, finding the serenity of a moment. In “Take It,” Nie is holding a pork bun out to the viewer, a nod to her Eastern Asian culture. It was selected, according to the judges, for her portrayal of children’s innocence, represented through the simple act of sharing.

A painting of some of Nie’s favorite things.

Artistic growth

Nie says she’s most proud of the work she’s created for her studio art class at school, including a graphite drawing of a hand as well as a colorful pencil drawing of things that are meaningful to her (a stuffed animal, a lightbulb, etc.). For Nie, completing a piece of art is rewarding. “I was able to realize the vision I had in my mind,” she explains. “I used photographs for reference, so I was really proud when they were pretty similar. That’s a skill that took a long time to develop.” And, Nie says, she’s also developed techniques like sketching without using a grid. Her graphite hand drawing, which features several fingers clenched around a small square, was one of her first gridless attempts. “I was proud I didn’t need to grid it while others in the class did,” she explains. “Gridding definitely makes life a lot easier, but it’s a skill to map out the proportions without it, so it’s something worth feeling proud of.”

While some artists will sketch out their piece before adding paint, and others might stretch or gesso their canvases, Nie takes a different approach. “I just go for it,” she laughs. “I mean, I’ve mainly been using acrylic paints and pencil nowadays, and if I mess up using acrylic paint, I can just go over it with pencil.” There are times when she’ll decide to sketch out a piece before she begins, especially if it’s something she “can’t mess up on.” 

When Nie does decide to make a sketch, “it’s very loose and undetailed.” Next, if she doesn’t already have a reference, she’ll pick out a few. She then makes a quick, simple sketch on her canvas. Since she works layer by layer, each one gets more “detailed and refined.” Currently, her favorite things to draw are portraits, and she uses “a lot of cool colors, but I also feel like it’s a balance between warm and cool colors.” Additionally, “Between acrylic and oil paint, I prefer acrylic, probably because I’m more used to it.” Nie says it takes anywhere from a few days to several weeks to complete each piece.

Nie has also dabbled in the sphere of digital art. “That art doesn’t really go anywhere,” she shrugs. “I just kind of do it for fun. I remember seeing other people do it and decided to try it.” However, one digital art piece did go public, as she designed the cover for her school’s science research symposium program.

Acclaimed work

When Nie submitted “Awaiting” to The Bruce Museum’s iCreate competition for high school students in 2024, she wasn’t expecting to be selected. But Nie’s work was one of 58 pieces chosen from over 800, earning it a coveted spot on the walls of the prestigious Greenwich museum. Although none of the art was for sale, patrons could vote for their favorite piece. Much to Nie’s surprise, “Awaiting,” which The Bruce described as “[capturing] the raw emotions of a little boy on the street, his eyes filled with hope and longing for a better future,” was selected as the People’s Choice Award. “I couldn’t believe I was chosen as the people’s favorite!”

The next year, as previously mentioned, Nie’s “A Moment in Time” was one of 83 selected from a pool of 2,400 submissions to become a member of the National Art Honor Society (NAHS) Juried Exhibition. The show was held virtually from March 11 to August 31, 2025, displaying talented high schoolers from across the country. Her piece stood out for its expressive use of color and various brushstroke techniques, from the blurry background to the focus on her and the camera.

Most recently, Nie was the only student who, along with eleven professional artists, was asked to design a 3D fiberglass heart for the Armonk Outdoor Art Show. Her high school art teachers, Jayne Karlin and Garbiella Menasche, nominated her for the distinction. “It felt like a great honor to work alongside professional artists,” she notes.

At first, designing the heart was a challenge. “It took a while [to create the concept],” she says. “I didn’t have much inspiration until one day, during class, Ms. Karlin said, ‘You have to start on this.’ And then, ding! I had my idea! Then I just kind of went with that idea.”

“The guidelines were to design a heart that represented Armonk,” she continues. “So, I thought, ‘There’s no better representation of Armonk than the Armonk Outdoor Art Show.’ And I decided to paint the inside of a booth at the show. But instead of creating a generic booth with all the paintings, I designed one with a little girl looking up at a painting. I wanted to show how people are inspired by artists.” Nie says it took “about 20 hours” to complete the illustrations. Because the heart has a front and back, Nie utilized both sides to tell a story reflective of her relationship with art. Using acrylic paints, the front side shows various animals, such as a lion, whale and birds that are escaping from their frames, representing how the beauty of art and the wonder of children can bring these pieces to life. The artwork also features a small child wearing a backpack and stepping into this world of creativity. On the back, the child is facing outward, looking in fascination at the different animals, demonstrating how art captivates the viewer. After a month on display around Armonk, all hearts will be part of a live online auction starting on September 13 that culminates at the show itself. Auction winners will be notified when the show weekend ends, and the proceeds will go to North Castle Public Library’s educational programs and cultural initiatives.

Looking ahead

Nie, who is now a senior, doesn’t plan to pursue art as a career. She loves science and says she sees herself “probably in medical school or getting a degree in science or whatever.” But she’s not yet sure where that will be. Even the next four years are somewhat of a mystery. “I haven’t really looked at colleges yet,” she says. “It’s probably a problem at this point. As long as it has good weather, I don’t really care.” The one thing she does know is that art will always be part of her life—probably “on the weekends or whenever I have time.”

This article was published in the September/October 2025 edition of Connect to Northern Westchester.