Any viewer with a certain degree of sensitivity can interpret Kilessopoulos's pictures in many different ways: the first time round he takes a particular set of features and these form a certain picture in his mind, the second time round he takes another set of features and these form another picture, and then he takes another set and these form yet another picture. The first, second and third pictures all go together and make up the whole work - and that's the marvellous thing. Each of these pictures is fully developed, in my humble opinion: in other words, I believe it represents a peak of technical perfection; it has exhausted all the possibilities provided by the material used. With great inventiveness, this material may form a patch, or perhaps a surface or a simple line in contrast to a broad one, and these elements actually form whole worlds.

To me, as someone who is particularly familiar with the work of J.S. Bach, this phenomenon suggests the composer's compositional thinking. Two hundred years after his death, despite the tomes that have been written about his work, it is still not clear what type of wisdom he has instilled in his works. These works are a prime example of multi-layered structures which are open to numerous possible interpretations. Everybody uses the method of analysis taught at the conservatoires: they discover the first theme, then the second, they examine the structure of a development or a fugue or anything else that typifies a stereotypical approach, forgetting that Bach consciously used at least ten other sciences; that is, he would place the centre of gravity within different parameters. And only if one examines and analyses these parameters can one draw satisfactory conclusions. One of these is the discovery of the role and symbolism of numerical relationships in his music. The number 3, for example, which was regarded as an ideal number, since it stood for the Holy Trinity. The number 9, therefore, which is three times three, is even holier, and 27, which is three to the power of three, acquires even greater significance, and 27 appears in his compositions as a formative number and factor. In the first fugue of The Well-Tempered Clavier, there are 27 bars - three times 9, and of course 9 is three times three. In a multitude of different ways this element creates a variety of internal structures. At the end of the manuscript Bach writes the number 27 in his own hand, and so we know that he was consciously counting.

Another parameter is the Theory of Musical Rhetoric, according to which whatever Rhetoric proper managed to achieve, Music should be able to achieve too. Also, there is the concept of Symbolism and the concept of Theology, given that Bach was a deeply religious Lutheran. There also exists in his work something which today we call Psychology. The forerunner of Psychology in his day was the so-called Theory of Emotions (Affektenlehrer). His music also branches out into other spheres, which are usually marked by different levels: the physical - when it says that Christ ascended into Heaven, he uses a rising scale, when it says that He came down from Heaven, a descending scale, while intersecting scales denote the sign of the cross, and so on. From the physical level we move onto the psychological one, i.e. a level higher: we pass, so to speak, from Physiology to Psychology and then onto the next level, from Psychology to Metaphysics. There are actually ten interlocking levels.

In the same way, I can see many different levels in Kilessopoulos's works, which function as organizational principles and go together like the strands of hair in a plait. The viewer needn't analyze these levels in order to enjoy the work. The overall result is what counts, the overall effect it conveys. This is what happens when I admire a cherry-tree in blossom, for example. I don't have to look at each of the 100,000 flowers on the cherry-tree. I see the marvel of the flowering cherry-tree as a whole. Here, too, I see the marvel as a whole, with the shapes and colours that Kilessopoulos has composed forming a unified work.

Furthermore, I would say that the consistency of the artist's development between the period 1960-1962 and 1998 is also remarkable - that is, it is the same personality that is doing these things.
Of course, it passes through various phases, which for me are equally convincing. In no way do I reject the first or the last phases because I believe that there is a continuous evolution towards a state of maturity, towards an ideal, the nature of which is determined by him on each occasion.

One of his most distinctive characteristics, even in his early works, is his exuberance of expression, which is why he writes even his surname with two s's, while his sister, who is more frugal, writes it with one. This exuberance consorts exceptionally well with three parameters which are unquestionably the most important criteria for judging the quality of a work of abstract art, according to what I understand to be abstract art, which I believe will become clear in this study of Kilessopoulos's work.

The first parameter is composition, that is, the way in which everything that has to be set out is actually laid out within the bounds of the picture, what the proportions, relationships and interactions of the individual elements are. I would say that Kilessopoulos's compositional ability is spontaneous, and surpasses the organizational ability of the mind, or, more precisely, filters through it in such a way as to bring to the surface what could be interpreted or function as a random result. Indeed, the random factor is of great significance in his painting. Even so, through the random arrangement of dots, for example, or thin lines, there begin to emerge certain shapes which stand out as the expression of a will. 
Here is a quadrilateral, there is a curve, a shape in the form of an ideogram...

These create patterns - I have still not found the appropriate word in Greek, where I call them schematismoi or morphomata, terms which do not entirely satisfy me. These patterns permeate both the structures and the final result in the way that fractals do. However,  this is not just another case of the Theory of Chaos at work but the primary, spontaneous and wise movement of an inquiring spirit which is tormented by the question of what structures are composed of on both a minute and a gigantic scale.
The second parameter is colour, which, as is well known, is measured in three ways, in three dimensions. The first dimension is brightness, ranging from very light (white) to very dark (black). The second dimension is hue, i.e. the position of a colour on the spectrum, beginning with red and moving through orange, yellow, green and blue to violet. The third dimension is saturation, i.e. whether the colour is very pure - as it is in the spectrum - or whether it is faded, turning grey. These parameters create a total of about 2,000,000 hues that are visible to the human eye. A painter balances the different colours he uses according to his own criteria. The ultimate criterion and the most intrinsic, is the material, the final physical texture, which has a decisive effect on the result.

Proof of Kilessopoulos's superb handling of his material is the fact that he uses a specific technique for aquarelles, a different one for oil paintings, another one when executing a mural out of doors, and yet another for structures that project into space. With his expert knowledge of the ways in which a particular material behaves, he will subject it to the demands imposed in each particular case.

Here I can make another comparison with the way in which Bach handles his material. Bach did some unique things which transcended the limitations of the media of his age. He exploited these media in the best possible way - media which, though apparently meagre, were much more sensitive than the coarse means of expression that we have at our disposal today. The sounds they produced, therefore, were delicate, with a wonderfully wide range of nuances, while the instruments of the 19th century were much more sonorous and loud, of a coarse acoustic conception. In this way he weaves together his compositions with a very delicate web of relationships, which are almost inaudible to the untrained ear.
Similar relationships and balances are woven by Kilessopoulos in that phase of his work which, from 1995 onwards, more austere and refined in character, actually possesses a complex organization, arranged on numerous different notional and real levels: in other words, he exploits both notional three-dimensional space, through the use of various - illusory - methods of perspective, and real three-dimensional space, by using distances of one, two or three centimetres between layers of transparent material which allow the eye to see through them and reconstruct them.

Artists nowadays, each time they submit to the conveniences which the modern age provides, are in increasing danger of completely losing their sense of delicacy and nuance, and eventually their ability to handle their materials. Thus, coarseness becomes the rule, dulls the sensitivity of the public and renders it unable to grasp the existence of more subtle states and levels. 

• 35th DEMETRIA FESTIVAL. CITY OF THESSALONIKI, 2000