2004 Personal exhibition at Titanium Yiayiannos Gallery Athens

Of the present and future

Innocent, blameless, conspiring lovers. Lonely figures in social circles. Couples embracing. Dances - swirlings, acts of love, lovers' love, hatred of love. Ambience of a room cozy, musical! A colourful – liquid atmosphere filled with the aura of the people that give it shape, without however defining it completely, ultimately. A fluidity that allows the viewer to fix his image where (s)he thinks is best. In the end, the image is always what the artist desires it to be. Made by his hand and hard work, but always completed by the viewer, according to the extent to which he participates.

Stavros Chatziioannou's figures seem to come from the past. They invade the space. They impose themselves on space, our everyday, current space, as objects of brilliance that settle there like our memories, like our desires, and finally, like our destiny. They are not defined by time, they are timeless. The past, present and future are here on the canvas, ethereal and everlasting. The perpetuity of the human soul ... the perpetuity of art. Pain and joy. Figures of the distant past, the present and most distant future. Finally the major existential question that reaches the boundaries of time till the end of the universe.

Life that is short.
That is so long.
Our life.

Apostolos Yayannos
Painter

I, a she Human Being

Stavros Chatziioannou's personal approach of the human figure involves a unique portrayal of its image, an evident wresting of the forms from the momentary and their turning in space.

Cezanne said that painting is when things turn, "La peinture c' est quand ca tourne", in other words when a subject is rendered as appears in nature, when the artist succeeds in transferring to the canvas something of its three-dimensional existence in space. Stavros Chatziioannou paints with evident immediacy, with a dancer's grace that is reflected in his work, with skilful manipulation of subject and materials. He draws the figures out from the background with the director's sense of responsibility, and invites them on stage to play an erotic, existential role of blatant loneliness or doubtful companionship, in 'theatrical' monologues or dialogues -it makes no difference- either way the artistic scene is interesting, its colour repertoire alternating and the sculptural values of its form are either developed or innate to their background.

Until the desired form emerges, one feels as if the painter gropes for its shape in the shadows and then moulds it with colour and light, recognising the form he created in the resultant figure. Besides, the painter's strength lays, not in his sight but in his sense of touch, his fingers' ability to understand the shape of a figure, a blind man's skill in feeling and recognising things.

On the other hand, I don't know whether painters also view things from a literary perspective when they paint, or rather, I know that they do not. They care about form and form alone - they do not even concern themselves with poetry, no matter that it lies hidden in a brushstroke or at the tip of a line, in the final act or in their mind.

As for us, they say that criticism is the worst way in which to approach a work of art, and I do my best not to forget it. Although this may cost me, I try to reach the painting via another route, not only for myself but also for those that do not read between the lines and colours at once, but first go through the written word.

This is why when I choose not to ask indiscreetly what the painter is trying to say, I seek the help of the poet, who sees nature, the palette, the human body and soul, through a different perspective.

I, a she Human Being. "I believe that I am a whole person. Without him I could not be and now I am and I can and we are a pair, divided, he and I, and I have my own light. I believed that I exist, but when did I exist without him?"

This invocation to the Creator, through whom life is bequeathed to man, could be addressed to the painter creator, without whom we barely exist, in any case.

Dr. Vivi Vasilopoulou
Archaeologist – Art Critic