However, when the crisis stroke the country, street art boomed in Athens and managed to cross the borders, for the city was on the spotlight. Cacao Rocks is one of the most popular and acclaimed street artists of his time, also involved with film, writing and sculpture. He works within the parameters of figuration and abstraction to express his impressions and emotions. Following names that made it abroad Cacao started also from that same basement in the multicultural area of Psirri, in Athens (where he still works and resides), which serves as a studio and a gallery for young street artists who want to focus on their art. In fact, this basement is the main core of a Block Art, as it is its name – a block at the Psirri neighborhood full of art studios, exhibition spaces, galleries and a gift shop.

He has been painting the streets of Athens for –at least– the last six years, leaving behind distinctive works, or just his tag “Cacao Rocks”, making everyone wonder who he is. Last summer, Cacao held his first solo exhibition at the gallery DIO HORIA, at Mykonos island, entitled Les Cyclades Electroniques: a series of paintings not only on canvas, but also on huge amphorae, drawing inspiration from Cycladic architecture, the rich colors of the Greek sea, the force of the winds and the brightness of the Aegean sun. Although if you have a closer look at his work, you will see that the choice of colors isn’t random. Les Cyclades Electroniques don’t depict some kind of cheesy worshiping of the beauties of the Greek Islands’ scenery, but are reminiscent of a photographic negative. Consider that.

Then an exhibition in Zurich followed. When we contacted him, he was on his way to the US, visiting the University of Michigan to paint a wall in downtown Ann Arbor as part of the Global Graffiti Project, a partnership between the Institute for the Humanities, the Modern Greek Program, and the History of Art and also give a lecture on the street art scene in Athens, its highs and its lows, and the uses of street art as a ​​powerful form of expression and communication. This is his moment, no question.