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Miami Palmetto High School senior Rafael Linhares is Palmetto’s Silver Knight nominee in the Art category.
“I do abstract art,” he says. “I’ve developed my own unique style. I draw little characters.
It gets pretty intricate. I have a more free style that consists of lines and circles organized in a million unique ways.”
Linhares has been drawing his entire life. He has always gravitated toward the type of art he’s doing today.
“I started taking it more seriously since quarantine,” he says.
Linhares does not take art classes at school. He learned a lot about art from his father, who also does abstract art.
“He’s a colorist,” he says. “I’d say a lot of my influences come from him. I’ve grown up in a house that’s always been covered in paintings.”
In college, he plans to pursue art as a business.
“I’d like to learn a lot more about the world than art,” he says.
He also loves to write and hopes to one day publish children’s books.
He hasn’t taken art classes in high school but he plans to take some in college.
“I’ve been watching YouTube videos on how to draw realistically,” he says.
To qualify for a Silver Knight nomination, students need to do strong community service projects.
“I published a coloring book called A Thousand Things to See. I shared it with retirement homes,” he says. “Once a week they gather around and color.”
He says he wanted to publish a coloring book because it’s a therapeutic activity.
“It’s good for your mind, it helps people relax and reflect,” he says. “It gives them a sense of peace and a sense of pride.”
He’s hoping to expand and add more retirement homes to the list of those using his coloring book.
He also volunteers at 6Hope, the sixth floor of the Hope building at Baptist Hospital.
“I hand out my drawing and coloring supplies,” he says. “I give them everything for free. I talk to them about their day. I go from room to room. I go every Tuesday.”
At Palmetto, he’s the communications officer for the Creative Writing Club. As a junior he won a Scholastic Gold Key for a short story. He’s a staffer for the literary magazine, The Golden Sun.
He’s a member of the Science National Honor Society and Robotics club. He designed a banner for the robotics club for their 2023 SECME competition.
Linhares attended a summer program at the University of California at San Diego for the Capital Debate program where he participated in Lincoln Douglas debates.
This year he’s competing in History Bowl.
Outside of school he tutors jazz and classical piano.
“I have an eight-year-old student, a six-year-old and 30-year-old, and a 12-year-old in Classical Piano,” he says. “I’ve been playing for 12 years. I’m classically trained. I had a Russian teacher growing up, who was very strict.”
He still plays classical music and was nominated for the Honors Performance Series.
Linhares has been accepted to Florida State University, University of South Florida, and University of Colorado at Boulder.
On some applications he was undecided with an interest in majoring in government, and minoring in creative writing or music.
He’s applied to the University of North Carolina, Northwestern, the University of Florida, Columbia, Harvard, George Washington University and Georgetown.
He recently participated in a three week environmental community service program called Go Beyond in the British Virgin Islands where he tagged sea turtles, did mangrove restoration, built a greenhouse, worked on a local farm and conducted data collection for coral reefs and work on beach clean-ups.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
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