Graduate student helps build Christian art gallery overseas

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then Liberty University Master of Fine Arts student Adara Jensen is sharing countless stories, and the Gospel, with hundreds of people from various backgrounds — without ever speaking.

Jensen, who earned a Bachelor of Science in Studio & Digital Arts with a studio arts concentration (as well as a psychology minor) in 2015, spent last summer in Richmond, Va., interning with global mission-based organizations to set up a Christian-inspired art gallery in the Middle East with the aim of sharing the Gospel with unreached people groups.

The gallery is part of a larger “Art as Mission” ministry sponsored by Richmond-based Hillside Missions. Hillside works with fellow global missions organization World Horizons to train and send missionaries across the globe — to places such as North Africa, Central Asia, Mongolia, and Cambodia.

Though Hillside and World Horizons use many avenues and initiatives to share the Gospel in the countries they travel to, the “Art as Mission” ministry is unique. Rather than missionaries starting conversations on their own, they are able to use visual representations of the Gospel to start those conversations.

“They just put up the work, and over there (people) say, ‘Whoa, this is beautiful,’ and they ask, ‘Why are you here, why are you doing this?’” Jensen said. “So, it opens up doors for conversation, and within minutes of meeting a Muslim or Hindu or anyone, you can share the Gospel.”

Jensen collected the art by contacting students in Liberty’s Department of Studio & Digital Arts (SADA) and promoting the project on social media. Among the pieces she gathered are drawings, paintings, and mixed-media works.

Jensen, who has a preference for oil painting, charcoal, and colored pencil, was also able to contribute one of her own paintings to the gallery. Her oil painting “Always Remember” is a portrait of a Middle-Eastern refugee girl whom Jensen met over the summer while she was serving as a childcare volunteer as part of the internship.

“The motivation behind my work is to combine my passion for portraiture with telling the stories of people like this beautiful little refugee girl who had an enormous impact on me,” Jensen said. “She told me about her family and how much she missed her father because he is still in her home country, apart from her mother, siblings, and herself, who resettled in the U.S.”

Other pieces in the gallery, Jensen said, range from sculptures to abstract works that have a biblically focused message with the hope of reaching the hearts of people who have not been introduced to the Gospel or who grow up in a society that is intolerant of Christianity.

Another gallery similar to the one Hillside is building in the Middle East was set up temporarily in North Africa in March of this year. Because of the number of Gospel conversations the gallery started and the impact it made on the people in the area, Jensen said she has even higher expectations for the permanent gallery in the Middle East.

“It invites people in so you can have those conversations, and people stayed for two hours after that show just talking,” Jensen said. “So in the culture in the Middle East, where Christians are being persecuted, I hope that there is hope and light and safety for the team there and that it would open up a lot of opportunities.”

Apart from the opportunities Hillside creates overseas, they also host a monthly Christian-based art gallery in Richmond where locals are able to view pieces from Christian artists across the country. Jensen said the Richmond gallery is the model for the galleries they build overseas, attracting 200 to 300 people every month.

Jensen said the internship inspired her to do the same type of work after she graduates. She hopes to work overseas one day curating galleries and continuing to spread the message of Christ the best way she knows how — through the gift of art.