The youngest living artist featured in the Museum of Fine Arts just got younger. So did the youngest curator of an exhibit.
Th MFA has partnered with Boston Public Schools to present its first exhibit of teen artwork curated by teens. The exhibit, called “HOMiE: In Our Eyes,” features 44 paintings, drawings, and photographs that explore the theme of home. It celebrates the 10th anniversary of the Teen Arts Council, the museum’s leadership development program for teens. It is displayed prominently in the Art of the Americas wing, near a gallery of John Singer Sargent paintings.
Teen Arts Council members juried the works featured in the exhibition, with guidance and support from MFA staff. Director Matthew Teitelbaum said that the process was driven largely by the teens.
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“It’s all about the notion of voice in the teen community, jurying and presenting the work of their peers,” Teitelbaum said. “It’s about their voice presenting that voice.”
The voices of the teen community are new to the MFA; the teen community is a demographic that the museum has struggled to engage. MFA data suggested some grim facts about attendance demographics: An estimated 75 percent of visitors are age 45 or older. Also, only 11 percent of visitors identified as non-white.
A show like “HOMiE,” which features artists all under the age of 20, many of whom are non-white, might help build and broaden the museum’s audience. Perhaps when teenagers from diverse backgrounds see more of themselves reflected on the museum’s walls, more will go to the museum.
Teitelbaum said, “I think they’ll become our advocates. They will then take that message back into their communities and say, ‘This is something that speaks to me. I want you to come see it. I want to share this idea with you.’ ”
Many of the themes and concerns in the show that recur are deeply personal reflections on issues of race, immigration, and heritage.
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Elcie Merck of Dorchester said that her painting “Black Moms Matter” depicted one of her fondest memories: her white father undoing her black mother’s braids while they watched movies. “It’s also a dedication to dark-skinned black women like my mother,” Merck said. “Dark-skinned women don’t get much representation in art.”
In an artist statement that accompanies the work, Merck writes, “Her life matters to me, my family’s life matters to me, which is why I incorporate Black Lives Matter.”
In various works, artists return to homes that they no longer physically inhabit: in Syria, Brazil, Cape Verde, Nepal, Colombia, Jamaica, and New York. Others explore their different neighborhoods in Boston — a painting of a grocery store in Roxbury, or photos of Waldemar Avenue, in East Boston. Sometimes home isn’t a place at all, but a person, or even an object.
In his drawing and collage “A $400 Home,” Brando Pimentel meditates on the importance of his PlayStation. Pimentel writes in his artist statement, “Even though I just got home from a surgery that is keeping me from doing things like eating food normally, I can still go and play. Even though it is likely that after I recover from this surgery I am going to need more surgery, and even more after that, I can still go and play. . . . It’s Home.”
Beatrice Española, one of the 12 Teen Arts Council members who curated the show, and a rising senior at Boston Latin Academy, said that the diverse interpretations of the word “home” made the curation process exciting. Final decisions — from what to put in the show to where to hang it — rested with the teens.
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Espanola said that one theme stuck out as distinctly millennial — the incorporation of relevant popular gadgets, like Beats headphones, into multiple pieces. “This one really gets at selfie culture,” she said, pointing to Jorge Martins’s digital media piece “what is next?”
She said that they discussed these more millennial themes at length, and that some were hesitant to include those works in case they undermined the apparent seriousness of the exhibition. Ultimately, she said, everyone came around. “These works were really representative of our generation, and it’s important to get that across.”
The Teen Arts Council members who curated the show retired from their yearlong terms in June, replaced by a new set of members. Española and fellow council member Danilo Martinez both said that they won’t be retiring from the arts, though, and they hope to pursue arts-oriented careers.
They also have one particularly teen-friendly task left. There will be a party July 18 for the artists, curators, family, and friends. The MFA purchased a Snapchat filter for the event, and the Teen Arts Council will make its final (if ephemeral) mark, by curating the opening party Snapchat story.
Globe staffer Malcolm Gay contributed to this story. Sophie Haigney can be reached at sophie.haigney@globe.com or 617-929-2560. Follow her on Twitter at @SophieHaigney
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