The same way paint comes off the bristles of a paintbrush and onto a canvas, Paul N. Poloz wants to take the paint from his soul and place it onto the world in the form of architecture, art, and love.

Form, color, composition, space: the few things Poloz was first taught as a child living in Molodechno, Belarus, by his father, Nikolai Poloz. Lessons were taught to young Paul in drawing and painting and the child's love of art grew ever so from then on.

Poloz was raised in a strict, conservative Christian home where questioning certain aspects of life was out of the question. He was taught that things are how they are and nothing can or should be done about it. From a very early age, Poloz could not comply with that belief and he began questioning things. Even as a very young child, Poloz would look up at the surrounding buildings of his town and wonder, "Why does everything look alike?" He would later find the answer to that question, which would end up being the greatest challenge he would face throughout his life - the conformative, coercive institutional world around him made things how they are. Following the rules of his surrounding society seemed like the correct thing to do but this contradicted the ever-changing way of his spirit.

As a young youth, Poloz began attending a few preeminent schools of fine arts in Belarus. There he received more in-depth studies on drawing, painting, and composition. Poloz finally began to understand what his place is on this planet during his studies of art. The pencil or paintbrush in his hand would speak and shout through him as the words spilled unto the paper or canvas as an illustration of something that resided in his soul. With love, Paul would pour himself into his art and nothing else in the world seemed to exist as he put his everything into his work.

At the age of fifteen, Poloz became a student of Oleg V. Lucevich at Glebov's School of Fine Art. "Lucevich taught me that a real work of art comes from the collaboration of our heart and Divine Spirit," Poloz said. "The result must be as sacred as the wood of the Divine Icon, in which the Spirit and the flesh are hammered into one." Lucevich also taught Poloz what his priorities and motives should be when composing art. "He said if you do this without love, then it's not yours," Poloz exclaims.

It's at this time in Paul's life that he began reading the philosophical works of Aristotle, Plato, Hegel, Kant, and Feuerbach; but it was the writer Dostoyevsky who truly opened Paul's eyes to the realities of the world. He began to understand that personality is completely ignored by society, where society only dictates for conformity. Poloz commenced on an intellectual search in finding the truth as to why one should yield to conventional thinking. This search led him to meeting the most profound and inspirational man that Paul has ever personally known. This man was Kim Hadeyev. Hadeyev was a wise man who was full of knowledge to deliver. Poloz soaked up as much as he could as he treated Hadeyev as his spiritual guide. Kim encouraged Paul to study the history of Christianity, as well as the entire Christian theology, from ancient Christian time to the 21st century. Hadeyev also brought Poloz to studying philosophers Kierkegaard, Tillich, Berdyaev, Barth, and Nietzsche. From exploring them, Poloz came to the realization that he must let his spirit run free as it may, without any restriction from any kind of exterior influence.

Poloz set out to continue his education at the Academy of Art in Minsk, but a philosophical and ideological conflict erupted between Poloz and the Secretary of the Communist Party, and he was not able to complete his education there. Because of the strong communist influence of the time, the school wanted Poloz, as well as the rest of the students, to join the Youth Communist Party. Poloz refused and this caused his expulsion from the academy. Due to the fact that Poloz was not a student any longer, he was required by the government to go into military services but because of Paul's stubbornness to remain unmanipulated and uninfluenced by structures that will dilute his spirit, he refused to join the communist military as well. This resulted in an investigation by the Soviet Union's secret police, the KGB, in which the outcome was two years of house arrest. During his period of house arrest, Poloz created dozens of paintings, drawings, and stained-glass panels for church windows.

Drawn to the study of architecture, Poloz read about Oscar Niemeyer and Le Corbusier; this gave him an understanding of the intimate relationship between space and form and between beauty, art, and human life. Poloz was twenty-one years of age when he decided to study architecture in the studio of B. I. Ezhov. There, Poloz continued his education, studying architecture and urban design for three years, and under the supervision of Nikolai Shkodenko, he learned how to apply these design principles to large-scale projects. Poloz also learned from reading art history and art criticism, and from careful study of museum exhibitions and displays, he also made study trips to great cities to view and analyze churches, museums, and other great buildings throughout Europe, all the while keeping a detailed sketchbook of his findings.

The KGB continued to watch Poloz as he would speak out against the communist government in group gatherings of students, professors, and even communists. Due to Paul's governmentally "disloyal" past, he was given a choice to either leave the country peacefully with his family or stay and face certain consequences. Poloz and his family left to Austria for a several months and shortly after moved to the United States in 1988.

Poloz began work as a designer for SG & Associates until that company relocated to Eastern Europe in 1993. He then became an independent consultant before establishing his own company, Poloz Architectural and Construction Consulting, specializing in the restoration of historic buildings in Illinois. He collaborated with architect Walter Carlson, whom was a great supporter of Paul's since his arrival to the States.

In the fruitful years that followed, Poloz continued his architectural education in California, where he became a partner of Diamond Architecture & Development in San Francisco; and in 1999 opened a design studio in Morton Grove, just outside Chicago.

Poloz later established his architectural firm, Poloz Architects Ltd., in 2000, consisting of several draftsmen and licensed architects working under him. Although Paul believed that he escaped conformity of art expression, he soon found that it had followed him to Chicago. The desire to design intuitive and sensually unique architecture was trumped by developer's wants to have simple designs and by Paul's need to give into these requests to be able to have work so that he can feed his family. This would disappoint Poloz constantly because creating innovative designs is in his nature and he was forced to do the exact opposite. Nevertheless, he was able to fulfill his artistic needs by producing many drawings of portraits, abstract concepts, and schematic architectural sketches and by creating numerous large oil paintings on canvas.

Poloz knew that talent cannot be delivered through conformity so he decided to enter his unique designs into competitions. In 2007, Poloz won a church project competition as he embodied his own personal expression in form, light, and space in the building's design. The environment, form, and overall feel of a structure are all incorporated in Poloz's vision when designing a building. "Architecture is an impression of art on a grand scale," Poloz tells. He entered several other competitions which changed the direction of his architectural career.

Due to Poloz's love of nature and natural aesthetics, his designs now embark on more of a sculpture-like and organic form and quality. Also owing to his lust for the environment, ARCPROSPECT Foundation was established by Poloz. ARCPROSPECT is out to aid beautiful architecture in the way that architecture should be part of our planet and not just sitting on it. "Everything should work in benefiting everything else," Poloz says. "As a standing tree serves a purpose for everything around it, so the same should be with what we put into this world."