Opening Reception Saturday, November 23, 2024, 6-9 PM. 

The exhibitions run from November 24 – January 5, 2025.

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Contain Me by Hend Al-Mansour pays homage to women of Islamic Faith—Khadijah, daughter of Khuwaylid, and Hafsah, daughter of Omar—wives of the Prophet Mohammed. Their actions during the earliest days of Islam left indelible marks on the religion. The two installations, Contain Me and The Scribe, come together with a video work to create a whole. Each installation comprises large-scale wooden cutouts of Khadijah - framed with an octagonal halo - and Hafsah in front of painted canvas backdrops.

 

“Contain Me” is a reference to the words Mohammed had spoken to Khadijah after he ran to her from the mountain. The installation of the same name portrays the moments after the Angel Gabriel visited Mohammed in Hira's cave. In shock and confusion, Mohammed sought refuge in his wife, Khadijah. She wrapped a blanket around him, listened, and comforted him. Khadijah faces the viewer while Mohammed is referenced with his back to the audience facing Khadijah. “Contain Me” is also a plea from Al-Mansour, reflecting “my desire for my voice to be accepted and contained within Muslim beliefs and principles and the larger human community.”

 

The Scribe depicts Hafsah, one of Mohammed’s wives, after the tragic death of Khadijah. While Contain Me describes an emotionally charged moment, The Scribe portrays a calm intellectual theme. Hafsah was entrusted with keeping most of the scripts of the Islamic holy text, the Quran. She was instrumental in preserving, and some argue, "editing and codifying" the Qur'an. Again capturing a moment of female power in the Islamic faith.

 

The video pieces in the exhibition, I Want to See You and I am a Line, are animations of a fantastical journey into the heavens and into new dimensions, where Al-Mansour is united with these powerful women, morphing and transforming into a unified design, a doorway into the beyond. Al-Mansour derived the geometric pattern on the canvas by mixing the contours of the portraits with traditional Islamic design grids. While not immediately recognizable, the outlines of the portraits are easily identifiable. Once you see it, you will see it throughout the works, especially in the animation videos where geometric patterns create an oneness within the power of belief and equality.

 

As a child, Hend Al-Mansour carved large female figures into sand. Growing up, she was acutely aware of her limited opportunities as a Saudi Arabian woman. So, instead of art, she studied medicine in Cairo, Egypt. For many years, she practiced as a cardiologist but also built a reputation among her colleagues for the images she drew in the doctors' rooms. In 1997, Al-Mansour relocated to the United States, where she finally was free to follow her calling: art. In 2002, she earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. In 2013, she completed another Master of Art History at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. Arabic and Islamic aesthetics influence her work, which references gender politics in the Arab world. Al-Mansour was awarded the McKnight Fellowship in 2018, the Jerome Fellowship of Printmaking in 2013/14, the Juror’s Award for the Contemporary Islamic Art exhibition in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 2012, and the Minnesota State Art Board Artist Initiative grant in 2005. She was listed among the 100 most powerful Arab women in 2009, 2011, and 2012 in the online magazine Arabian Business. She has shown her work in regional, national, and international exhibitions, lectured on Arab art and her personal journey, and curated exhibitions featuring Middle Eastern artists. Al-Mansour is a co-founder of the group Arab Artists in the Twin Cities and was a member of the Arab American Cultural Institute in Minnesota, where she worked to promote the understanding and expression of Arab culture in the West.

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This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.