Hafiza Nilofar Khan

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo., Jan. 28, 2016 Hafiza Nilofar Khans East Meets West art exhibit will open on Feb. 5 in the Kenneth and Jeanine Dobbins River Campus Center Hallway Gallery at Southeast Missouri State Universitys River Campus.

This exhibit will remain on display through March 28. A reception to meet the artist is planned for 5-7 p.m. Feb. 5, in the Hallway Gallery.

The hangings in this exhibition are acrylic, encaustic and mixed media. Her work reflects her passion for mixing eastern with western cultural imagery.

Painting means trying to incorporate all parts of myself into the art., says Khan.

Khan says she is a hybrid, created from bits and pieces of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and America. Likewise, she holds that her mostly mixed media canvases reflect a very eclectic style in their amalgamation of cultural imagery and material from different parts of the world.

Painting for me is about crossing borders without a passport, she says.

Following a passion for teaching, Khan received her masters degree in English from Dhaka University in Bangladesh in 1985 and received the same degree from the University of Hawaii- Manoa in 1993. She continued her education at the University of Southern Mississippi, where she earned a doctoral degree in Post-colonial Literature in 2008.

She and her husband Dr. Carl Bloom, instructor in the Department of English at Southeast, moved to Bangladesh in 2001, where they taught in Dhaka. It was at this time that Bloom began to paint, inspiring Khan to take up painting herself. She began selling her paintings, and while her work was never featured in an exhibit while in Dhaka, she was able to display and sell her paintings.

Balancing my art career and my professional career is very difficult, but it has allowed me to be in both parts of the world very frequently, she says.

For more information about Khan and view her works, visit hafizanilofarkhan.com.

The Dobbins Center Hallway Gallery is open 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday.