Art Lives at Unity

Art Lives at Unity Church

Art provides another medium through which human beings experience gifts of the spirit. Response to a work of art may be on intense, profound levels. As with poetry or literature, theatre, dance or music, the visual arts provide meditative and emotional opportunities and appreciation of life's process, our cultures and society. Unity's Art Team serves the congregation by hosting exhibits in our Parish Hall gallery, cataloging and sharing information about Unity's extensive art collection, and inviting the congregation into art appreciation through various events and learning opportunities. For more information about the work of Unity's Art Team, please email [email protected].

July and August Parish Hall Artists

The Transcendent Power of Art to to Impact Change: Creating a New Narrative in Today’s Social Climate

Meet several of the artists after the service on Sunday, July 13, and come to the reception on Friday, July 25, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m.

Five artists featured in July-August exhibit at Unity Church

From July 2 to September 2, the Unity Art Team is featuring the work of five artists who come from different backgrounds, but all speak to the creation of new narratives in these challenging times. Shun Yong’s work investigates his identity as a second-generation Chinese immigrant in Malaysia as well as a new immigrant to the U.S. Hend Al-Mansour, born and raised in Saudi Arabia, works to break down the barriers that separate her two worlds, blending the richness of Islamic art with the stories of women who have claimed their power. Barbara Rogers Bridges creates social practice sculptures from rescued “power objects” intended to provoke reflection and conversation about challenging issues related to social justice. Catherine Palmer’s paintings speak to the crises of homelessness, mental illness and drug addiction as if seen through CCTV and mirror how society observes, but fails to engage with, urgent social issues. Owen Brown’s work is about longing, time, emotion, loss and recovery. His subject matter is the story behind the story, behind speech.

The artists featured in this exhibit invite us to reflect more deeply and expansively on the term “social justice” in all its complexity and subtlety, and to engage with their work, and with each other, as we do so.

Read on to learn more about each of the artists.

Artist Statement: Catherine A. Palmer

My recent body of work delves into the silent, often overlooked narratives held within the cavernous spaces of urban parking ramps. During the unprecedented stillness of COVID-19, these familiar structures, once teeming with the rhythms of daily life, became stark monuments to absence. It was in this eerie quiet that I began to see them anew—not merely as conduits for vehicles, but as involuntary witnesses to the escalating crises of homelessness, mental health crisis’ and drug addiction that unfolded in the pandemic's shadow.

These paintings are not literal depictions, but rather a subjective translation of what I observed and felt. Using a modern expressionist palette, I aim to evoke the raw emotion and unsettling beauty found in these liminal spaces. Colors are heightened, forms distorted, and light manipulated to reflect the psychological impact of these scenes. The deliberate choice to frame these views as if seen through CCTV lenses—blurry, fragmented, voyeuristic—underscores a sense of surveillance and detachment, mirroring how society often observes, yet fails to fully engage with, these urgent social issues.

Through bold brushstrokes and an intense chromatic range, I invite viewers to confront the uncomfortable realities that the pandemic laid bare. The empty parking ramps, once symbols of temporary containment, become metaphors for the isolation and vulnerability experienced by so many. These canvases are a meditation on the human condition amidst crisis, urging a deeper look into the lives unfolding in the periphery, often unseen, yet undeniably present.

Artist Statement: Shun Yong

“C-H-F” is a photo series that consists of portraits and hands of the Asian climbers as well as audio interviews. This photo series was inspired by finding community among Chinese climbers in Minnesota at the bouldering gym during and after the pandemic and a heightened time of anxiety and stress for me personally. Sharing in this activity with a community often underrepresented in gyms and the sport, allowed me to explore shared culture, language and celebrate strength and resilience. Sharing this art with my community also inspired me to quit my corporate job to dedicate more time to making new art.

This body of work was included in the Hennepin Theatre Trust public art project, It’s the People, in Minneapolis in 2023, then it traveled to a historical building located in Yilan, Taiwan. I was able to experience printing on different materials so I could make the works look like they belong to the Historical Building.

Artist Statement: Owen Brown

Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking. The source of my practice is the world with all its beauty and confusion – nature, so alien and alluring, the social, equally baffling but no less wonderful, and the uncomfortable friction between that, and our internal interpretations. Life eludes easy understanding or conclusion: what are we seeing when we really think about it and how did we miss it before?

Owen Brown was born in Chicago, trained as a classical musician, took his first art class at 23, and much of what he’s wanted to do since then has been paint.
Brown holds degrees from Yale College and the University of Chicago, and was a degree student at California College of the Arts. He lived for over 30 years in San Francisco, where he was represented by Meridian Gallery. He now lives in Minneapolis.

Brown has exhibited in juried shows and solo exhibits throughout the United States, Europe and Canada. His works have been acquired by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Nature Conservancy, the Minnesota Historical Society, the University of Chicago and the Weisman Museum of Minneapolis, and can be found in collections in this country, Europe, and Asia. Brown has had residencies at Air Le Parc in France, at the Land Institute in Kansas, at Black Mountain Ranch in California, and at the Milchhof in Berlin, Germany. He is represented nationally by Holly Hunt and Curina, he shows regionally at Veronique Wantz, and has collaborated with artists of other disciplines, such as Emily Wolahan and Anat Shinar.

His art has been reviewed or published in publications ranging from the San Francisco Chronicle, to Heidelberg’s Pigeon Publishing. Monographs of his work have been published by Meridian Gallery Press and 4128 Editions (Ideasthesia and Myriorama) Blue Wind Press will release Arcadia in 2025, and preparations are underway for the publication of Die Mauer, in 2026, by Pigeon Publishing. Brown was also an invitee at Art Prize Nine and invited to show at the COVID-cancelled 2020 Kochi Biennale, in Kochi, India.

Artist Statement: Hend Al-Mansour

My artistic practice began in Saudi Arabia, where I was born and raised. Creating art was a leisure hobby until I immigrated to the United States and decided to pursue a career as a full-time artist. In 2002, I earned my MFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and since then, I have become a full-time artist. My primary media are printmaking and installation; however, I am also strongly drawn to painting, drawing, and animation. I use vibrant colors like hot pink, regal gold, playful yellows, reds, and blues. Henna paste, a symbol of tradition and adornment, finds its place in my work, bridging the gap between history and modernity.

My dream masterpiece integrates printmaking and animation into a large-scale gallery installation.

Despite the restrictions on depicting human forms in Saudi Arabia, I was strongly attracted to figurative drawing and painting, influenced by Modern Western artists. Concurrently, I was immersed in Islamic art aesthetics, Arabic calligraphy, and local women's artistic traditions, such as henna patterns, Sadu design, and Qutt art. I became more aware of these aesthetics when I moved to the US. Awakened by its absence, I rediscovered the richness of Islamic art, particularly the genius of geometric and floral design. I am amazed by the ability to create varied patterns using a single grid.

As a result, my artistic practice fuses two seemingly contradictory elements: the human figure and Islamic geometric abstraction. I have worked to break down the unconscious barriers that separate these two worlds, blending them into a cohesive visual narrative. My art tells the stories of women who have claimed their power, focusing on figures from Arab history or Arab American communities. Motivated by my experiences of gender discrimination and the oppression of women, I strive for social justice through my work. Inspired by female role models, I make these women central figures in my pieces and drape Islamic designs around them.

Using the very constructs of faith and culture, my art initiates a dialogue of reform and a call for change. It seeks to amplify the voices of those silenced and overlooked in Saudi Arabia and beyond.

Hend Al-Mansour's artwork will be featured in a new exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Mihrab: Portraits of Arab American Women, from July 19 through October 26, 2025. She will be giving an artist talk at MIA on Sunday, September 7, at 2:00 p.m. You can also meet her in the MIA gallery on August 14 and October 23 from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m.

Artist Statement: Barbara Rogers Bridges

Barbara Rogers Bridges has been an artist and a teacher/college professor for over 40 years. Her social practice sculptures have been exhibited in Maine, Miami, the Virgin Islands, Maryland, Chicago, Mexico, Spain, Canada and throughout Minnesota. Bridges taught K-12 art in Minnesota, Maine and the Virgin Islands and trained teachers in higher education at the University of Minnesota and Bemidji State University.

Barbara created social practice art from fabricated components in a variety of media and rescued “power objects.” She manipulates the objects to create meaning and provide discussions and reflection on a wide variety of social topics.

She is an intervenor. Cambridge educated philosopher, Tim Ingold, holds a unique theory on art making. Dr. Ingold suggests that artists are simply interveners on any particular materials and/or objects the artist manipulates. Any object already has a story, the artist simply recombines these objects to create a new narrative.

Barbara is founder and director of Art to Change the World.