I teach painting at the School of Visual and Performing Arts, Kean University, Union, NJ.

My favorite medium is oil, and lately, my favorite compositions are of dark and contemplative interiors from a series titled “In Search of a Black Pearl.” My paintings of industrial landscapes, also very atmospheric, depict my search through the mysterious territories of my personal interiors and exteriors.

I see my paintings as the visual expression of a magical realism that is a fractious reconciliation between my past and present.  My past’s enchantment holds my soul and imagination in an irresistible spell.  Here I find a world of calm, warm light and tender shadow, a world in which objects are coaxed out of the black, colorless background of my gesso-covered canvas.  Human presence is felt, but not depicted, a metaphor for the hold my past has on me.  While these places still exist in my mind, they are no longer a part of this world.

The ambient, warm moodiness of these interiors is contrasted by the bright, crude starkness of my present: the industrial landscapes from Newark, New Jersey and New York City. I soften and beautify these subjects by giving them human attributes. These scenes contradict with my past yet I live surrounded by them everyday. My dialogues with water towers, chimneys and cranes of New York and New Jersey are joined by silhouettes of architectural forms from Krakow and ski lifts from the Tatra Mountains, forging connections on canvas that unite my past and present spaces.

My work constructs a bridge between these two realities so that I may better understand my world.  For now, I know that I am always torn between two worlds:  when I am in Poland, I yearn for New York and when I am in New York, I’m nostalgic for Poland.  Understanding this fissure is both, a consolation and a torment.