The art of being a teenage girl in 2024

Last year, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) released data that showed 57% of U.S. teenage girls felt persistently sad or hopeless in 2021 — a 60% rise from 2011. Adolescence has never been easy, of course. But it’s the teenage girls of today — especially those who identify as LGBTQ+ — that have faced increased levels of sadness and violence .

As a 17-year-old junior at Middleton High School, Shay Roy-Lewis didn’t need datasets to figure this out.

“I’m pretty sensitive and aware of the issues that are going on with mental health and body image and stuff like that,” says Roy-Lewis.

Still, she felt like these issues were almost always talked about purely in a “negative sense,” with little room in the larger discourse to recognize the everyday resilience of girls themselves. And it was this lack of constructive conversation that weighed on Roy-Lewis’ mind when she sat down to brainstorm her Take Action Project.

The project, a community service initiative that she needed to complete to be considered for the Girl Scouts' Gold Award, could take on whatever form she wanted. At first, she didn’t know what to do. However, a lifelong love of art — nurtured by her mother, who holds a doctorate in art history — prompted an idea to “just pop … into [her] head.”

Thus, “Her Art” was born.

On view in the Overture Center for the Arts’ Rotunda Gallery until Nov. 10 , “Her Art” is an exhibit curated by Roy-Lewis, featuring the photography, paintings, collages, sculptures and more of 16 jury-selected, female-identifying teenage artists. It’s billed as an embrace of “positivity and self-confidence,” an exhibit meant to celebrate young women “not for what they look like, but for who they are.”

Alexandra Ralyn, Amara Bolton, Amelia Kelly, Bess George, Fatima Lavariega, Gabby Sowicz, Jade Galindo Salgado, Jocelyn Olivero, Kyla Meicher, Leela Benson, Llani Froeber, Maya Cahill, Molly Jane Schafer, Mya Schwarz, Opal Wankerl and Pamina Nemet — the 16 artists whose work adorns the curved wall of the gallery — answered Roy Lewis’ call for celebration with verve.

Roy-Lewis worked closely with Stephanie Barenz, director of the Overture Center’s galleries; Megan Landon, an Overture gallery coordinator; and Jody Clowes, Roy-Lewis’ project advisor and director of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters’ James Watrous Gallery on the curation of “Her Art,” too. And Barenz reported to Madison Magazine that, since the exhibit opened, the “gallery has been filled with discussions about identity, empowerment and social issues, showcasing how art can inspire meaningful dialogue.”

For Roy-Lewis, who had no previous experience in curation, the process itself has been thrilling. But gratitude for her peers’ involvement and artwork has inspired her the most to hope for other opportunities in the art world.

“I’m just extremely, extremely grateful,” says Roy-Lewis. “They’re all wonderful, incredibly talented and intelligent young women.”

To view the exhibition catalogue and learn more, visit herartexhibit.org .

Alisyn Amant is an editorial intern at Madison Magazine.

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