Student to Compete in Sydney Art Event

A Pacoima Middle School sixth-grader, the son of Bulgarian immigrants, is one of three young U.S. artists heading for the Sydney Olympics behind their skill with a paintbrush.

Anguel Alexiev, 11, and his mother, Petrouchka, leave today. Anguel is one of 36 winners worldwide in Visa International’s Olympics of the Imagination competition for children ages 9 to 13. The winners were selected from more than 400,000 entries.

“My artwork, ‘Viva Olympiada!’ represents the Olympic ideas for higher achievements in sports and human life,” Anguel, who already sells his work over the Internet, wrote in his entry. “The Olympic motto of [Faster, Higher, Stronger] for me means that every man always has to strive to achieve higher goals in his life by developing a higher level of intelligence in a healthier body.”

Anguel, a student in the Television, Theater and Fine Arts magnet program at Pacoima Middle School, painted an interpretation of the motto featuring the Olympic torch, runners, a high jumper and the Olympic rings.

While in Sydney, Anguel and the other winners will attend men’s gymnastics, men’s basketball and women’s beach volleyball competitions, and they will compete for a best of show prize.

Aaron Moretzsky, vice principal at Pacoima Middle School, said it is an honor to have one of his students represent the U.S. in one the Olympics’ peripheral contests.