Art Critic published in "Gallery Guide"
Autumn 1998, Athens
By D. Pantelidis, Historian of Art - Journalist

Iannis Nikou's work is unique. By this statement, I mean that in contemporary art, when the so called "originality" and "improrivisation" have displaced skill, study and the narrative element, Nikou is persisting in creating monumental paintings, both in dimension and in composition.
In Nikou’s paintings the spectator can read stories of epic character and vivid sensations. The painter is using a visual, rich of philosophical and psychological symbols code, appealing to our subconscious, so to make us participate in his own "world".
All the above, speaking from the technical point of view, is achieved by the impeccable use of drawing with pencil and by, the material he prefers most, the oil colour. The sources of Nikou's inexhaustible inspiration can be traced in literature,science fiction, opera, history; as well as in cinema or in comics. His male figures are saints or monsters; his female characters, either beautiful or ugly, are always Sirens, Harpies or Sphinxes, erotic but at the same time menacing and forbidden. His heroes are coming from the past and from a spatial future; creatures of another world, together with knights in their quest for the Holly Grail, winged horses, demons and angels...
Iannis Nikou is definitely representing the present in Contemporary Art.