"A long time ago art and religion started together and for a while,a long while,the two were completely inseperable. In the last coulple of hundred years they went their own ways. An answer to whether it was good, or bad, I would leave to the politicians of theology and to art historians. As my own art goes it will always be inspired by religion and things spiritual, at the same time, I believe, religion without art, and here I mean serious art, not illustration, will start sooner, or later descending into the hell of fundamentalism.." - W. Szostalo

Background
Born in 1952 in Lithuania, which at that time was part of the soviet Union, to a Polish father and a Russian/Polish/Lithuanian mother.Then moved to Poland at the age of six and grew up speaking three languages. I grew up with two legacies: that of my mother who for years managed to handle two full time jobs: I can't imagine life without work, work all the time that is , and the legacy of my theologian father who, when there was no one else around, would fill-in as a hero: he smuggled Wilno Jews out of the ghetto, which ended in narrow escape from death in a Gestapo's hands, when the Germans left and the Soviets settled in, he talked about democracy for which he "only lost his job"; he went to church every day in communist Poland, and refused to join the communist party which assured the lowest possible rank in the job market, which leads us back to my mother who had to work, and work, because of my father's idealism.

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