Gabriela Cichowska

Gabriela Cichowska
Gabriela Cichowska, born in 1984 in Rzeszów, Poland, is an award-winning painter and illustrator who has created Kokeshi-inspired paintings for us at PUNKESHI as part of the DADAKKO series – a multi-layered, playful yet profound exploration of the Kokeshi as an art form, where traditional aesthetics and contemporary art intersect in surprising ways.

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Wooden dolls and toys have always been an important source of inspiration for Gabriela Cichowska. In her kokeshi-inspired paintings, created as part of the DADAKKO series, she knows how to imbue the wooden dolls with the expression of gazes and gestures as human as possible, creating characters that enchant with their grace and poetic charm.

Praised as one of Poland's most talented illustrators, Gabriela Cichowska has received numerous awards both at home and abroad. Her Fantje (Text: Adam Jaromir) was selected as the most beautiful picture book of 2010 by the Polish publisher's guild PTWK and included in the International Children's Library's »White Raven« catalogue (2011). As part of the 2011 Bologna Ragazzi Awards, she was given special mention as Opera Prima. Her graphic novel Fräulein Esthers letzte Vorstellung (Text and storyboard: Adam Jaromir) was awarded the Gustav Heinemann Peace Prize and was nominated for the 2014 German Youth Literature Award.

Gabriela Cichowska was born in Rzeszów in 1984. She studied graphics at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow and then completed her doctorate at the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź, where she still teaches drawing today.