Born Iran, 1969

After completing a BA in Painting at the University of Maryland Shafie moved to New York in 1993 to live and to study painting at Pratt Institute, where she graduated in 1999 with an MFA in painting. Shafie presented her thesis exhibition September Promises in 1996 which featured a large body of work comprised of "eshghe” drawings on mylar and her first video installation Spin (1995). Shafie's work to date is the continuation of the same principles of repetition and the exploration of the farsi word “eshghe” english translation is love/passion. Shafie left New York in 1999 after accepting a fellowship at the University of Maryland in Baltimore County and began a focused time on performance and video art , she completed her second MFA degree in Fine Arts in Digital Media in 2004. Since then she has maintained her studio and art practice in Baltimore, Maryland where she currently lives. 

Shafie's work has been included in numerous exhibitions and She has been the recipient of grants from the Kress Foundation, RTKL and MSAC Individual Artist Grant (2010 & 2008) and the Mary Sawyers Baker awards from the William G. Baker Jr. Memorial Fund (2009) & Franz and Virginia Bader Fund (2011). Most recently Shafie was shortlisted for the Jameel Prize (2011).