Afarin Rahmanifar, professor of art and art history at Eastern Connecticut State University, is exhibiting her solo exhibition “Women of Shahnameh” at Towson University’s Asian Arts and Culture Center Gallery from Feb 13-May 16. This is Professor Rahmanifar’s fourth solo installation project. 

Inspired by Ferdowsi’s 10th-century epic poem, “Shahnameh” (The Book of Kings), Rahmanifar’s exhibition showcases the women in the poem. Through large-scale paintings and animated films, she features poetic scripts, bright colors, fragmented body parts and intertwined nude figures to reinterpret the classic narrative surrounding men and their domination of work in society. “I have found my personal voice by observing women throughout history,” says Rahmanifar. The goal of the exhibition is to show the essential roles the “Women of Shahnameh” held in supporting the success of heroic male characters such as kings.

After being exiled from Iran in 1979 due to the Iranian Revolution, Rahmanifar was shell-shocked by Western depictions and values regarding gender. “My artistic search as an Iranian-American woman goes on to set a female imagery from a very personal to historical view,” says Rahmanifar, whose work is based on the struggle's women faced decades ago and continue to face now.

Of all the women Rahmanifar depicted in her most recent exhibition, the one that stood out to her most was Gordafarid, the first Amazon in the Iranian epic. Entering the battlefield herself by concealing her gender, she sought to defeat Sohrab, a legendary warrior. However, Gordafarid realized she could not win the battle, but still impressed Sohrab, causing him to fall in love with her.

Rahmanifar pays tribute to the women in her art by presenting their names on the pieces alongside the men’s. By doing so, she provides credit to the women that allowed for male success.