Pictured above: Victoria Alexander, A Warm Embrace, colored pencil. Image courtesy VisArts.
Victoria Alexander, a junior at Thomas S. Wootton High School and former VisArts student, has won the 2026 Congressional Art Competition for Maryland’s 8th Congressional District.
Alexander received the award for A Warm Embrace, a colored pencil drawing depicting a father holding his young daughter. The work will be displayed in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC for one year alongside winning entries from congressional districts across the country.
The Congressional Art Competition is an annual program open to high school students who submit original artwork through their congressional districts. Selected works are exhibited in the Capitol as part of a national presentation of student art.
Alexander has studied art through youth programs at VisArts in Rockville over a number of years. Her winning work uses colored pencil to build variations in texture, light and skin tone while focusing closely on the physical interaction between the two figures.
In A Warm Embrace, Alexander centers the composition on an intimate moment between parent and child. The closeness of the figures and the detailed rendering of their expressions and clothing place the emphasis on affection and familial connection.
A Warm Embrace will remain on view in the U.S. Capitol for the duration of the 2026 Congressional Art Competition exhibition cycle.
