ILZE VĪTOLIŅA is one of Latvia's leading costume designers, who has created costumes for several hundred performances in all Latvian theatres. Her versatility as an artist is characterized by her ability to work in various genres and styles, her broad creative imagination, and her inventive technical solutions. She has been nominated twelve times for the Spēlmaņu Nakts Award as the Best Costume Designer, winning this prestigious award four times (2003, 2004, 2008, 2013). She also received the Zolotoi Sofit Award in St. Petersburg (2013).
She graduated from the Janis Rozentāls Riga Art High School and the Fashion Design Department of the Art Academy of Latvia. In 1996, she enhanced her skills at R. Williams' animation masterclass in Ebeltoft, Denmark, and in 2000, she participated in an international animation producer workshop at the Baltic Media Centre in Bornholm, Denmark. She earned her Master's degree in Fashion Design from the Art Academy of Latvia in 2003.
Ilze Vītoliņa has worked as a drawing teacher at Mazsalaca Secondary School, as an artist, animator, and script and advertisement writer at the animation film studio Dauka, as a stylist for the magazine UNA, as a costume designer at the Dailes Theatre, and as a lecturer at the Fashion Design Department of the Art Academy of Latvia.
She has created costumes for theatre productions directed by Dž. Dž. Džilindžers, Laura Groza, Roman Kozak, Igor Konyayev, Alexander Morfov, Jan Willem van den Bosch, Oļģerts Kroders, Mihails Gruzdovs, Viesturs Kairišs, Viesturs Meikšāns, Elmārs Seņkovs, Dmitry Krymov, and others. She also designed costumes for Aivars Leimanis' ballets Don Quixote (2004) and Karlsson flies… (2013), as well as for the new choreographers' project Pictures at an Exhibition (Bolero...) and operetta Die Fledermaus by Jochann Strauss (2015) at the Latvian National Opera.
In 2017, she participated in the World Stage Design festival in Taiwan. Ilze Vītoliņa is also the artist behind many puppet theatre performances, several animated films, feature films, and books. In 2019, for her work on the animated film Before the Day Breaks (Saule brauca debesīs), she received the Lielais Kristaps Award as the Best Animation Artist. Since 1992, she has created fashion collections, several of which have been recognized with awards.