Born in 1960 in Torun, a small Medieval town in Poland, Iwona Chmielewska studied graphic art (BFA) at the CopernicusUniversityin her hometown. Since graduation, she has been active as a writer, designer, and artist, producing self-written books, initially for her own four children, and giving lectures on picture books at her alma mater. Reminiscent of Russian and Central European illustrations from the 1920’s and 1930’s and Polish children’s book drawings from their golden age in the 1960’s and 1970’s, her works are noted for their novel collages of paper and cloth, diverse coloring techniques, imagination and creativity, and philosophical depth. She has written and drawn over thirty books including Thought (Mysl), On Wandering While Falling Asleep (O wedrowaniu przy zasypianiu), Blue Stick, Blue Box (Niebieska laseczka-Niebieska skrzyneczka), Thinking Alphabets (Myslacy alfabet angielski), Two People (Dwoje ludzi), The Four Directions of Time (Cztery stony czasu), The Way to School (Moje kroki), and Half Full or Half Empty? With the publication of her works in translation, she has visited South Korea and become fascinated by the simple logic and figurative beauty of Han’geul, the Korean alphabet, which has led to the unique picture book Thinking Gieuk, Nieun, Digeut (Myslacy alfabet koreanski). In 2000, her Master and the Cat (Pan i Kot) received as an honorary mention in the Pro Bologna competition (Warsaw). For her illustrated edition of the Polish poet Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska’s Verses (Wiersze), she received the Art Book Award at the International Artist’s Book Festival (Warsaw) in 2003. In the same year, her Good Morning, Europe! (Dzien dobry, Europo!) was nominated for the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) Polish Section’s Book of the Year prize. In 2004, she received the prize of the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences in the Contemporary Polish Book Art competition (Warsaw) for her From Here to There (Stad Tam). Her Blue Stick, Blue Box was recognized as one of the best books translated into Korean in the same year. In 2004-2005, she held an exhibition of her original illustrations for children’s books including Thought and On Wandering While Falling Asleep as well as several fairy tales at the Daegu Culture and Arts Center in South Korea. Her On Wandering While Falling Asleep was nominated for the IBBY Polish Section’s Book of the Year prize in 2006. In 2007, she received the Bratislava Illustration Biennial (BIB) Golden Apple Award for her drawings for the English-Korean dictionary Thinking ABC (Myslace alfabety; co-authored with Jiwone Lee). In 2009, she submitted her Half Full or Half Empty? and A House of the Mind: MAUM (published by Changbi; co-authored with Heekyoung Kim) as candidates for the CJ Picture Book Award, which is a part of the CJ Picture Book Festival organized in South Korea. In 2011, she received the Bologna Ragazzi Award for non-fiction for the latter work.
Changbi Authors
