Nikos Stratakis

Nikos Stratakis is a contemporary Greek painter, born in Heraklion, Crete in 1960. He grew up in Athens and he studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts. His professors were Yannis Moralis and Dimitris Mytaras (painting) and Vassilis Vassiliadis (set design).

As a student he worked as a set designer assistant and as a set designer for Greek and international film productions. After his graduation, he has been strictly working as a painter, professionally.

He lives and works in Greece. His works can be found in the collections of Greek museums, ministries and in notable private collections in Greece and abroad.

He has been characterized as the pioneer of the neo- academic movement in Greek painting,meaning that he was the first of a group of Greek painters who, despite the domination of modernism in art, started to paint like the older generations of painters. Their main characteristics are nostalgia for old school painting, the brushes, the canvases and the touch on a work’s surface, which gives birth to a poetic voyage towards the classical vision in art.

They can be called the Greek “prerafaeliti” or neo-nazarene painters. (Charis Kambouridis, art historian)