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Iwona Rypesc-Kostovic   IWONA RYPESC-KOSTOVIC

I was born and grew up in KRAKOW, Poland. I was fortunate to grow in a community of artists who encouraged me to pursue creative ideas across borders of art media. To find the best form for expressing my concepts I learned to shift from one medium to another, experimenting with a variety of art techniques. My grandmother, who was not only an artist,
but also a custom dressmaker, influenced my creative development. Watching her work on her sophisticated and functional designs, I became fascinated with the beauty, craftsmanship and timeless chic of classical European fashion.

     
My first artworks were sold in the galleries of Krakow when I was an art student. They were romantic dresses made from antique curtains and cotton gauze, which I layered, stitched, plied and dyed. These simple supplies were not readily available in Poland under the communist regime - people suffered shortages of everything, and everybody had to learn how to make something out of nothing just to survive.      
  Thanks to my early exposure to the Polish experimental theater in Krakow I began my love affair with THEATER COSTUMES. Costume design enables me to go beyond the script and to metaphorically communicate directly to viewers. All my artwork is expressive and reflects my close relationship with the theater - in my artwear the deep, dark background of the garment distinctively frames the vitality of the collage as a mysterious, silent stage; the quiet shape enhances the silent, yet powerful drama of the composition.  
In SARAJEVO , Bosnia I got married and continued my art education at the Academy of Fine Arts. I became fascinated with the way cultures of East and West coexisted and affected each other. This fascination inspired me to create a harmonious whole out of diverse, seemingly incompatible elements. I started experimenting with shapes and textures creating my first shaped canvases - art forms that are both sculptures, perceptually independent from the power of gravitation, and paintings, liberated from the rectangular format.    
  After coming to the United States to earn a M.F.A. degree in the Visual Arts, the war in Bosnia erupted and changed both my life and my art. My large scale SHAPED CANVASES became visual metaphors of my helplessness and rage - at a certain point I realized that I could not paint anymore. I came to the conclusion that if I cannot make the world better, I certainly can make it more beautiful, and turned my creative energy toward applied arts - ART TO WEAR and FINE ART TEXTILES for interior. This new direction helped me regain my shattered emotional balance and find a new way of expressing my responses to my experiences in the New World.
  After years of self-imposed exile, the antropomorphic, suggestive shapes have re-appeared to play their silent drama in the mysterious, infinite spaces of my compositions. They do not live within my shaped canvases anymore; now they inhabit my ARCHIVAL PIGMENT PRINTS. This format lets me experiment creatively without limits and express my Expressionist and Surrealist spirit.