From Metsovo, 2001
Inherent in the art of Nikolas Kyriakou is the strongly rooted characteristic of a constant two-way relation between abstraction and representation. This two-way relation can be interpreted at an aesthetic level, as it reproduces his world, sometimes combining design and colour, and sometimes liberating pure colour from the instructions of design.
The landscape From Metsovo does not tie Kyriakou down to a level of iconography, but advances to a level of interpretation. It provides an expression of his inner world through a carefully studied articulation of the stratigraphy of his composition. Broad flat colour surfaces make up the landscape of Metsovo, in which soft colours - white-grey, light blue and green - predominate, with an onslaught of bright orange, which is identified with the figures. The initiated beholder, in enjoying the harmonious combinations, can make out the mountain, the sky, the houses, the roofs, the water, man. Kyriakou, yet again, starts out from some visual stimulus, a real picture, which then becomes an inner one, becomes his subject. The successive over-paintings transform, alter the original composition, so that almost nothing reminds us of the initial stimulus. In spite of this, the idea of the object indelibly retains its trace in the work, in an abstraction through representation.
Τhe work was created for the exhibition 'Sketching out Today, Tomorrow and Yesterday. Young Greek Artists: A tribute to Prefecture of Yiannena".' held at the Averoff Museum of Modern art, at Metsovo in 2002.