Małgorzata Malwina Niespodziewana (1972)

She studied at the Faculty of Graphic Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków from 1993 to 1998. Her diploma project Ceremonies, completed in the studio of Professor Stanisław Wejman, received a distinction and was awarded the Rector’s Medal. In 2007, she earned a PhD in Fine Arts from the Faculty of Graphic Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. Her doctoral project, Body. An Artistic Concept of the Universal Body, was developed under the supervision of Professor Jacek Gaj.

She is a visual artist, printmaker, draughtswoman, and author of spatial installations and objects. A constant point of reference in her work is the human being and the human body—its physiology, gender, symbolism, and associated ritual practices. She has developed an original artistic concept of the universal body.

In her practice, she engages with the biographies, writings, and artistic output of avant-garde women artists, including Katarzyna Kobro, Erna Rosenstein, and Maria Jarema. In 2017, she participated in the exhibition The Power of the Avant-Garde at the National Museum in Kraków (Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie), and in 2020 she presented the solo exhibition Katarzyna, Erna, Maria at lokal_30 Gallery (lokal_30) in Warsaw.

She created a series of autobiographical comics: White Haribo Comic, Black Haribo Comic, and Golden Haribo Comic, presented, among others, at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Wrocław

An important component of her practice is a journal she has kept for many years, as well as her artistic travels—particularly to the Far East—which resulted, among other projects, in a body of works presented in the exhibition Washi no fushigi at the Manggha Museum of Japanese Art and Technology in Kraków in 2019.

She is the author of over forty solo exhibitions and has participated in more than one hundred and sixty group exhibitions in Poland and internationally.

Her works are held in the collections of:
— Mino Paper Museum, Japan
— Kanagawa Prefectural Gallery, Japan
— Uppsala Art Museum, Sweden
— National Museum in Kraków
— Kaliningrad Art Gallery, Russia
— Civic Museum of Cremona, Italy
— Polish Museum of America, USA
— Luciano Benetton Collection, Italy
— Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences in Kraków
as well as numerous private collections in Poland and abroad.

She lives and works in Kraków.

Selected scholarships and awards:

Mino Art Village Project (Artist-in-Residence), Japan (2006)

Grand Prix, International Biennial of Graphics of the Baltic Sea Countries, Kaliningrad–Königsberg, Russia (2005)

Nomination for the Polityka Passport Award (Paszporty Polityki) (2005)

Distinction, Graphic of the Month, Kraków (1998, 2001, 2004)

Grand Prix, Art Dea, Warsaw (2003)

Mino Art Village Project (Artist-in-Residence), Japan (2002)

Grand Prix, Graphic of the Month, Kraków (2002)

Distinction, Egeria, Ostrów Wielkopolski (2002)

Creative Scholarship of the City of Kraków (1999)

Grand Prix, Confrontations of the Youngest Kraków Artists (1999)

The Mythological Europe Revisited, Italy (1998)

Rector’s Medal, Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, for the diploma project Ceremonies (1998)

Scholarship, Mythological Europe Revisited, La Fratta, Italy, Forum Foundation (1998)

Scholarship of the Minister of Culture and Art (1997–1998)

Award, 7th National Drawing Competition, Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków (1996)

First Prize, Printmaking Competition, Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków (1996)

First Prize, Landscape in Contemporary Painting, Kraków (1996)