Eastern Professor Afarin Rahmanifar Showcased in NYC Art Gallery

Willimantic, CT (11/30/2017) — Written by Casey Collins

From Nov. 17 to Dec. 22, Brooklyn's SOHO20 Gallery will present "Women of Shahnameh, The Memories Between," an exhibition by Afarin Rahmanifar, art professor at Eastern Connecticut State University. For Rahmanifar, who resides in Manchester, this will be her first time on display at the prestigious New York gallery - in the past month she was also featured at the ArtWalk Gallery in Hartford, CT, and the Hans Weiss Newspace at Manchester Community College.

Self-described as having "intersecting points of Eastern and Western culture," Rahmanifar's work is a reflection of her life as a young exile of Iran and a proud American mother. As a child, Rahmanifar's family was forced to abandon her home in Tehran, Iran, in the wake of the Iranian Revolution. She later came to America, where her passion for art led her to earning a master's in fine arts at the University of Connecticut.

"Women of Shahnameh, The Memories Between," is a masterful collection of different art forms, including painting, installation and animated motion picture. The exhibition draws inspiration from "Shahnameh" ("The Book of Kings"). The book is the world's longest poem, and is a staple of Iranian mythology, telling the stories of magic, superheroes and love. Rahmanifar's exhibition translates the epic into short films and original stories that tell modernized tales of the women of Shahnameh, while still encapsulating the main themes of love, dreams and demons.

"Women of Shahnameh, The Memories Between" is on display until Dec. 22. For more information, call (718) 366-3661 or visit https://www.facebook.com/pg/soho20gallery/about/?ref=page_internal.

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Eastern Connecticut State University is the state of Connecticut's public liberal arts university, serving more than 5,300 students annually at its Willimantic campus and satellite locations. In addition to attracting students from 163 of Connecticut's 169 towns, Eastern also draws students from 26 other states and 20 other countries. A residential campus offering 40 majors and 65 minors, Eastern offers students a strong liberal art foundation grounded in an array of applied learning opportunities. Ranked the 25th top public university in the North Region by U.S. News and World Report in its 2018 Best College ratings, Eastern has also been awarded "Green Campus" status by the Princeton Review eight years in a row. For more information, visit www.easternct.edu.

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