In What Ways Can Creating Visual Arts Support Adolescents’ Stress Management and Emotional Well-Being?

Creating visual art has increasingly been considered as a possible way to support emotional well-being, but the processes through which art-making may affect adolescents are not yet fully understood. This literature review examines existing research on the relationship between creating visual art, stress management, and emotional well-being in adolescents. The review considers research on attention, distraction, emotional expression, emotional regulation, creativity, brain activity, art therapy, and adolescents’ experiences with art-making. It also examines how the context of art-making, individual differences, developmental stage, and the type of artistic activity may influence its effects. Across the literature, one mechanism through which creating visual art may support emotional well-being may be through redirecting attention, providing opportunities for emotional expression and self-reflection, and engaging individuals in a creative process. However, the existing evidence has important limitations. Many studies focus on young children or adults rather than adolescents, examine short-term emotional changes rather than long-term outcomes, or use small, culturally-limited, or mixed gender samples that may impact generalization of findings. Furthermore, studies often define independent art making and formal art therapy in completely different ways, making it difficult to accurately compare their effects in the long term. Overall, the research suggests that creating visual art may support adolescents’ stress management and emotional well-being, but its effects are unlikely to be universal or explained by one mechanism alone. More adolescent-specific and long-term research is needed to determine how, why, and under what circumstances visual art-making may be most beneficial.