Article in the Monthly Art Review "Terzo Occhio"
Published on the occasion of a series of Ianni Nikou's one-man shows in Italy. 1987
By Giuliano Serafini, Art Critic and Historian

Apparently, Ianni Nikou's Painting is tuned to the wavelength of Historic Surrealism. On one hand, his themes are an epic synthesis on Gods and Fiends, a sacrament through which ourselves, as an audience, are initiated-and finally entagled-into the strange world of the Subconscious: Mythology, ancient archetypes, witchcraft or metaphysical insight are called for, and generate more and new pictures into our minds. As well, their monumental size and the intensity of the allegoric message passed on to us, help us to connect Nikou's work to the principles of Science Fiction. This is one even more eccentric way possessed by the painter to carry us away, along with his own fleet into the secrets of this traveling spirit.
On the other hand, from a strictly historical point of view, his work could be placed on the threshold, the minute and rarely captured transitional instant in the History of Art, when the "Neoclassic" expression was fading away into the "Romantic" style. And indeed, it may not at all be due to chance, that the implicated "narrative" behind each and every one of this paintings is built on the "Romantic" part of the myth; the descent to Ade, Death and Resurrection, Darkness and Light; all Nikou's themes have been derived from the same repertoire, the one of the major and oldest ventures of Human Spirit.
Eventually, what we witness in Ianni Nikou's work is miraculous; his brush seems to capture on canvas the "eternal moment"; the preciousness and uniqueness of a particular moment in history, and at the same time, the glitter of Eternity within its limits. This rare and exceptional quality, makes his works claim their place as relics in many museums; a quality that seemed to be for ever more erased on the map of contemporary painting...