Afarin Rahmanifar
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Anatomic Myth of Self #3, 2026
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Anatomic Myth of Self #4, 2026
Artist Statement
My practice explores the female body as a space where personal experience, perception, and cultural meaning intersect. Working with fragmented anatomical imagery, I approach the body not as a fixed form, but as unstable—shaped by memory, emotion, and identity in continuous formation.
Informed by my experience navigating between cultures, Anatomic Self considers the female body as a site of internal experience and transformation, where vulnerability and change are made visible without resolution. This investigation extends into my engagement with the women of the Persian epic Shahnameh, whose mythological presence reveals how female identity is constructed and reinterpreted across time.
My work positions the female body as a site where the personal and the collective intersect—an ongoing space of fragmentation, rearticulation, and becoming.
- Afarin Rahmanifar
Artist Bio
Afarin Rahmanifar is an Iranian-born visual artist working in mixed media and installation. She is a Professor at Eastern Connecticut State University (ECSU). Her work explores the female body through layered figurative forms and the integration of multiple materials, examining identity as fluid, constructed, and continuously evolving.
Drawing on personal and cultural memory, her practice engages reinterpretations of the women of the Persian epic Shahnameh, situating them within contemporary dialogues of myth, memory, and representation. Her work is included in museum collections, including the William Benton Museum of Art, and has been exhibited nationally and internationally.