Biography

For almost 20 years, photographer Iwona Biedermann has sought to preserve fragile moments in life with her work. These explorations have been triggered by impulses both personal and aesthetic.

She was attracted to the medium of photography principally because its language felt universal. Learning to speak English while learning about photography occurred in tandem. “A lot of the time I felt lost in translation,” Biedermann said of her early years in Chicago. “But when I was photographing there was a certain complete reality of experience.”

Biedermann studied Photography at Columbia College and received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1990.

Since then she has worked as a freelancer and has taught photography. Her photographs have appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines including the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Magazine, The Reader, In These Times, Excito!. Screen Magazine, New City, Newsweek, Real Simple, Time-Out and various Chicago-based Polish media outlets.

Her work has been published in Australia, Brazil, Chile, England, France, Germany, Japan, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and United States.

Recognized through many awards, (Artist Fellowship, Illinois Art Council, Illinois, Humanities Council Grant, Commission from Public Art Program, City of Cultural Affairs Grant, Eddie Adams Workshop, Weisman Scholarship) her work has also been a part of many exhibitions.

Her interests in cultural diversity developed into a body of photographs entitled EmbRace that uniquely dealt with biracial relationships. In 1998, Biedermann’s photographs focused on portraying women in "Divine DisComfort". Her recent series of photographs deals with the private life of nuns in "Beyond the Veil" More intimate time photographing the nuns and seeing them as a women in a common human experience.

Sometimes a photograph helps to bring out hidden truths in the everyday world by pointing to detail and asking the viewer to extrapolate the mystery or simply to find what is human in all of us no matter our skin color, language or the habit we wear . . .

Photography is not just about remembering but finding meaning in common human experience. Her photographs are attempts to examine perceptions of beauty. Beauty is fragile and transitory in nature, but it is always there.

This photographer retains a hope that what emerges in an image can act as a bridge for the viewer. Simply put, our differences don’t have to keep us apart. "What I am interested in showing in my work are the similarities," Biedermann said.

Naturally, she aspire as a photographer to be a visual poet in concentrating the split moment into depth and substance, but she is also humble enough to recognize her value in simply serving well the people and communities she photographs by enhancing their own collective memories.

In September of 2003, Biedermann opened the DreamBox Foto STUDIO.