Guest Lecture: Monika Kostrzewa

Artist in residence Monika Kostrzewa will be talking about her work in International Focus Series I-V: V. Polish Artists Group Exhibition, the fifth installment of the International Focus Series.

About Monika Kostrzewa

Monika Izabela Kostrzewa was born in 1970 in Piotrków Trybunalski. From 1990 to 1995 she studied at the W. Strzemiński Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź in the Fabrics and Clothing Department where she specialized in clothing and jewelery design.
She received her degree clothing design in 1995 and from there attended a postgraduate UNIVERSITÉ de la MODE course in Fashion and Design in the branch of the Lyon University at Technical University in Łódź.
Since 2001 she has been lecturing on artistic graphics and magazine graphics at the Pedagogical and Artistic Department
of the Adam Mickiewicz University (WPA UAM) in Kalisz. In 2006 she earned her PhD in Fine Arts within the area of applied art.

She has been designing a few collections each year and cooperating with many Polish clothing, knitting fabrics and underwear manufacture companies. She has designed for the following lines: Ted Lapidus, Personalisty, Lantier, Veroniqe, Luigi Vesari and Hacker.

Monika Izabela Kostrzewa's collections were presented many times at international fashion fairs in Poland and abroad, at which
they received medals and honorary mentions inlcuding the Golden Baste Award in 1999, the Gold Medal of the
Poznań International Fairs for the collection of shirts Ted Lapidus 2000, Gold Medal of the Poznań International Fairs for the collection
of knitted fabric works Ted Lapidus 2001. The collection of underwear entitled Structures and Texture of Nature was among finalists of Intima Art competition organized by National Chamber of Fashion in 2003.


In 2003 she was nominated to the Designer and Producer of the year award for life-time artistic achievement in designing.
In 2004 she received honorary mentions for two collective collections entitled Sweet Dreams and Paradise in Intima Art competition organized by National Chamber of Fashion. STRIMA company awarded her with a diploma for the best designer of underwear. Both collections were presented at Le Salon International Interfilière and Lingerie in 2005 in Paris.

Her own original clothing and graphics designs have been presented in many exhibitions in Poland and abroad and have been published in fashion magazines.