Biography

My family tree started in XV. My ancestors were archbishops, prelates, and maltanian knights.  My talent for painting I inherited from my grandfather,  Ferdynand Halkiewicz.  He was a Polish national guard in world war two, in which he died in Katyn.  My grandmother, Irena Halkiewicz, was very creative.   During her education she met the famous artist Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz. During the second world war she was sent to Siberia with my two-year-old father, Jordan. He suffered terribly there but survived to give me life with a personal strength accommodating any and every situation.  My mother, Urszula was a beautiful, sensitive and honest woman.  She died when I was 5 years old.  This tragedy influenced my artistic side; sometimes when I paint, I feel shadows of my past generations around me.  I began studying art in elementary school, where my talent was discovered.  One of my childhood friends was the gifted Renata Przemyk.  We spent much time together, and were noted for our talents and creative abilities.  I attended an art middle school where I specialized in interior decoration, and where I met my best friend who was also a model for my drawings and paintings, Celina Cebula.  We did private art study at home in order to learn figure painting, which was not allowed in school. I then studied at the Academy of Fine Art in Krakow. I studied with artist authorities like Prof. Juliusz Joniak, Prof. Lucjan Zabkowski, and Prof. Jan Szancenbach.  My best friend at that time was Boguslawa Bortnik and Tamara Berdowska.  Both of these friends greatly influenced my own stylistic development. After graduating, I worked in cooperation with the Jacek Stawski and Marian Gologorski Galleries. My strongest geographical influence has been Santorini, Greece. I arrived in NY in 1999, and began working with Andre Zarre Gallery.