Woman I

Izabella Gustowska (born in 1948) uses various means of expression in her works. She began her artistic career in the 1970s with an interest in graphics, photography and video works. In the following years, her art was dominated by objects and elaborate installations in which she combined mixed media to create audio-visual shows. What brings Gutowska’s diverse artistic practice together and makes it cohesive is the subject matter of her pieces – the world she is interested in is a world observed from the perspective of a woman and devoted to women. The artist openly declares that she is inspired by the richness of the female experience, the vividness and exuberance of the female imagination and the physical expression of the female carnality, thus it is no surprise that the majority of her works are devoted to looking at women. The graphics Kobieta I, Kobieta II and Kobieta III from the Kobiety series, created in 1975-79, were purchased by the National Museum in Szczecin in 1977. These works document the early period of Gustowska's work, during which – following graduating from her studies in printmaking at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań (now the University of Fine Arts), she experimented with graphic techniques, combining the possibilities of contemporaneous offset printing with traditional graphic techniques such as etching and aquatint.

Magdalena Lewoc