High School student’s art on display at Grand Central Station

BY GARY SIMEONE

Hundreds of thousands of people per day are getting a view of the sunrise in Massapequa during their daily commute to work. The beautiful view became possible thanks to Massapequa High School senior, Sofia Panagoulias, who won the Grand Central Madison Student Art Contest. Her artwork is featured on seven by seventeen foot giant screens inside Grand Central Station until the end of the summer.

Panagoulias entered the art contest last November, which was open to all high school art students on Long Island. The contest was part of the MTA’s bid to have a Long Island theme inside of the newly renovated Grand Central Station.

She said that she initially took a photo of the sunrise inside the Massapequa Preserve, and digitally recreated the image on her iPad.

“It is my daily ritual to walk with my dog inside the preserve, and take a picture of the sunrise with my cellphone each morning,” said Panagoulias. “There was one morning that was particularly beautiful and I decided to send that photo into the contest.”

She said she digitally enhanced the picture on the procreate app on her iPad and sent the file to the MTA’s contest page on their website.

She received a response in December that she had won the contest and her artwork would be displayed on four giant screens inside the Station on a twenty-four hour digital rotation.

“I was so excited when I found out that my artwork would be featured on such a grand scale. It Will be shown on three giant screens along with other students pieces on a continuous fifteen minute loop. One of the screens will also show my name, my school and the title of my piece, which is called Sunrise over Massapequa.”

Panagoulias, who works as a spin instructor at Spin City Massapequa, said she has received several calls and texts from coworkers and clients saying they’ve seen her artwork during their daily commute.

The precocious high school student, said she has been interested in art since she was in elementary school.

“I used to enter Art Reflection contests in elementary school and in the