Ioannis Lassithiotakis was born in Heraklion, Crete in 1956. He first studied at the Vakalo Art & Design College (1973-1976) under P. Tetsis and Y. Valavanidis. He continued his studies at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence (1976-1978) under Fernando Farulli.

Since his first solo exhibition (Dada gallery, 1981), and by the mid-1980s, his works revealed a search for an artistic language of a neoexpressionist orientation, combining painting with collage or polyester sculpture constructions, usually anthropomorphic. The next stages of his career reveal an ongoing research on the visual media and the stimuli that dictate his themes. For a while he returns to a two-dimensional painting with abstract elements, and then focuses on the concepts of space and time (Weathervanes, 1993; Tales of the Wind, 1996), once again utilizing space and inserted material. He introduces existential references in his painting (Subconscious games, 1999; Imaginary autobiography, 2002), or draws inspiration on Persian miniatures (The Prince’s mask, 2003).

Through all these explorations, he is eventually led to a painting focused on human presence, with images based mainly on photographs of familiar faces. Through a distinctive use of colour, he manages to emphasize the sometimes psychological, and other times metaphysical aspect of figures (Days on earth, 2009; Faces, 2012). Since 1983, he teaches at the Athens Technological Educational Institute (TEI), where he is currently Associate Professor in the Department of Graphic Design.

He has presented his work in solo exhibitions in Athens, Patras, Thessaloniki and on Crete. He participated in many group exhibitions in Greece and abroad (Australia, Belgium, U.S.A., Japan, South Africa), counting most notably the 2nd Biennale of Young European Artists of the Mediterranean (Thessaloniki, 1986), the Osaka Triennial (Japan, 1996) and the 4th International Biennale of Sarjah (U.A.E., 1999), where he won the 2nd painting prize. A monograph on his oeuvre was published in 2007.