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Wednesday, June 11, 2008 Richard Montgomery senior wins visual arts award by Ellyn Wexler | Staff Writer
Courtesy of the Kao family Brooke Kao of North Potomac, winner of the 2008 Ida F. Haimovicz Visual Arts Award, won the 26th Annual Congressional Art Competition for the Eighth Congressional District of Maryland last year. 
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Brooke Kao, a graduating senior in the International Baccalaureate Program at Richard Montgomery High School, has won the 2008 Ida F. Haimovicz Visual Arts Award. The award includes a $3,000 cash award and a solo exhibit in the Cafritz Foundation Arts Center on Montgomery College’s Takoma Park-Silver Spring Campus. The opening reception for the exhibit, on Thursday, 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., will feature the presentation of the award.
Kao, 17, who lives with her family in North Potomac, has been making art since she could hold a pencil, but only began painting two years ago.
Through her artwork, she aspires to narrate the stories of American-born Chinese including the pressures of fitting into an extroverted Western society while still conforming to traditional Chinese ideals of introversion and purity.
Last year, she won the 26th Annual Congressional Art Competition for the Eighth Congressional District of Maryland.
Kao served as graphics editor and a staff writer for The Tide, Richard Montgomery’s student newspaper, as well as a cover designer and writer for the Gaithersburg Chinese School Magazine and a Montgomery County Public School Web Design Intern.
The recipient of the Frederick Douglass Scholarship at American University, Kao’s current plan is to major in graphics there in the fall, perhaps with a minor in fine arts (painting) and journalism.
‘‘Imagination,” Kao writes, ‘‘is one of the great gifts to humankind. Knowing this, I am steadfast in my ambitions to utilize this gift to my greatest potential.”
The Haimovicz Award, now in its eleventh year, was established by the family of the late Ida F. Haimovicz to support a Montgomery County high school senior intent on pursuing a visual arts career. At age 64, Haimovicz, a resident of North Bethesda, took a class at the Corcoran Gallery of Art and began sculpting. The award is intended to provide financial aid to deserving high school students that will enable them to enjoy their creativity while still young.
Kao’s solo exhibit is on view in the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Art Center Gallery, 930 King St., on the Silver Spring Campus of Montgomery College-Takoma Park⁄Silver Spring through July 6. Hours are 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays. Call 240-567-1368.
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