Magical or even better, with multiple aspects and fascinating, are the last works of the important and interesting -in so many aspects- painter: Stavros Hatzioannou. Here, the mystery coexists under the most evocative and yet “organic” way, with the instantly recognizable of the forms and of the situations that inspire the charismatic artist.

This, always, rich in meaning and in aesthetic quality work of the creator, meets in his current work, an unprecedented climax worthy conquered throw his belief in his personal vision. We are talking about a vision that the painter manages to renew, always from within, and to do justice to his utterly personal, artistic work. Work that brings within and radiates, all around, Hatzioannou’s fiery passion for his art. Passion that simultaneously ensures the peace and tranquillity of that particular personality that is not being consumed from superficial epidermal tricks, because precisely captures and relays on, each time, the "essence" of its stimulus.

This form, given realistic here, have an autonomous reference, thanks to its perspective, its scale, its «zoom» both visual and psychological that the artist is attempting on it, on situations, actions, feelings and reactions that cause a very wide range of associations. And this, through a not only artistic in texture approach, but a poetic one.

Through a visual angle at its most extreme poetic borders, the artist sees or better feels every time, whatever his subject might be, the need to provoke not only the gaze but also the psyche of the viewer in order to activate his own mental and psychological pathways. And he does this in order to make the viewer as direct privy, as it gets, to the “happenings” of each project. And for this, no one and under no circumstance passes by, a work of Hatzioannou. Neither the viewer's gaze glides simply over it. On the contrary, each creation by acting like a magnet and as a pole of attraction, invites, from the visitor’s approach, to a deepening penetration in order to reach as far as possible, the essence of the artist’s message.

The essence that here, is ingeniously turned into an evocative procession of the happenings. And this happens, whether it concerns : the fore play of a sexual intercourse, a passionate tango, a fiery - in motion, in site and also in pulse zebekiko (Famous Greek dance, mainly danced by a man alone, in a rhythm of 9/8) - a sensual, juicy neckline, or the sauciness of a baby, the charismatic-idiosyncratic, we might say, and at the same time revealing for the psyche of the illustrated form-portraits. Or, even more, when is about: the “dark” accomplices to a future criminal act. The human “pain” condensed into an endless scream, ingenious stated by the tragic look, the darkness of the cavity of a gape mouth and the contractions of the muscles, all around. It’s an ironic project, a masterpiece, and yet is an emblematic work that is identified, at full blast, with the tragic human fate, all over the world.

More than any impression, approach, or response, the works of Hatzioannou as they always subject a pithy "feel" of the main stimuli, at the same time honour in the superlative degree, their creator. It is indeed particular the sexuality that exudes the holding tight couple while dancing and almost come together in actually one, sensual penumbra. Similarly, it is stimulating the feeling of the music in zebekiko throughout the site and the movement of the male form that experiences it fully. Charismatic orchestrated is the sense of the waiting for some impending event, prominent under the appropriate light, under the peculiar angle and the ‘"setting” of any form that star in the given project.

Dreamy forms, forms that are hidden behind masks, forms determined to go for all, forms in waiting, volitional forms or, conversely, melancholic and lonely in the extreme, enigmatic forms, forms immersed in the adventure of life or, conversely, forms in reverie. Forms you feel that they look at you even when they do not show it. Forms, in each case, you don’t forget. Sheathed forms with a metaphysical aura, stated even through the infinitely small but always an ambiguous element-ghost. Forms showing unprecedented familiar and vice versa. Seductive forms, to the utmost, and apart from the external stimuli, forms that experience an absolutely mysterious world. Forms with ballast. Thinking forms. Spiritual hypersensitive forms that are protected only behind a phenomenal detachment. Forms that astonish you creatively in order to initiate you into the depths of their psyche, in the metaphysic action that underlies everything.

The artist's works are manifests of an inexhaustible energy, over and out from their high quality of execution. Mostly, however, they verify in the supreme degree, that in them: spirit and matter are nothing but the two facets of the same supreme truth: The energy that governs the Universe.

In other words every work of Hatzioannou is an aesthetic, poetic and eminently a creative achievement: includes autonomously a verification of Plato's definition of art. A definition which states that anything in order to be authentic must contain an "Idea". Endowed with the aura and the ballast that are given to them by the embodied Idea, the compositions of the artist fascinate us, into their creative artistic writing, indicating, as poetic as it can be, the paths leading from the physical, material existence in the territory of the spirit . Particularly tricky is this attempt, as the works of the artist, the fiery and omnipresent eroticism, is being identified thanks to his dynamic talent with its essence: the reactionary to every prosaic description, an energy that permeates and defines him.

Energy that ensures at the works of Hatzioannou: the uniqueness of the exclusively personal and aesthetically ambiguous, creation. A creation that is the only capable of putting up an attitude against the unsightly pandemonium of the levelling in the field of the arts globalization.

Dora Iliopoulos – Rogan
Dr. Art historian and critic
Officier des Arts et Lettres