For this one, I decided to quote the artist words. Yiakou, exists between the ideas which live in colors, Between Words that travel and even in the most passionate and vivid form of Art that the human eye has ever crossed. Yiakou lives in anyone that is experiencing or has ever experienced a true love. If street art had a body then Yiakou would surely live in the heart.
Many believe that art is born in our minds the day we start existing in this world. I tend to stand by that belief, as I feel that everything around us can be considered as a form of Art. From the flowers, the sky, the way the clouds turn into shapes, to our own mortal body. Art is a form with no actual shape, color or culture and that is what makes it the purest form of expression of them all.Artists are not only being born in a studio or in front of a canvas. They are born every day in the streets we walk and the paintings we see in tunnels, walls or abandoned buildings, they are those who stimulate our senses, the ones that awaken the society and bring down stereotypes just by using their imagination and the canvas called Society.Street art has its own unique character. Sometimes it is considered to be aggressive, destructive or even ugly. However, the true question is who can actually judge any form of Art? Majorities turn to keep in mind that art is being kept safely in Galleries and museums away from people who could in some way deform it.This is why everyone is so eager to judge almost everything they see. When it comes to Art you have to think with the eyes of your spirit of your mind and your imagination. What is ugly in the eye may actually describe the most beautiful message you could ever receive. No one can judge art. No one can say if art is beautiful or ugly because simply it is something Beyond our existence.Take it as an unearthly vivid conception.
Back to Yiakou, who studied something utterly different from what you would expect for almost 10 years, finally gave in to his true nature. He gave into art. As a child, Yiakou remembers himself being curious and dangerously energetic; characteristics that always led him into the path of creativity. Deciding to combine the city streets with art was the beginning of a great course. Meanwhile taking advantage of his studies, Yiakou manages to place his artistic entity and get involved in many different artistic dimensions such as painting, poetry, photography, radio and even directing. In the young age of 22, he managed to become one of the most admirable Street artists out there and win his place as the youngest member of the Greek representatives of the UNESCO Association.
Yiakou, creates romance in the streets of Athens and makes you feel a little bit nostalgic about the times when love was so much easier to exist. He uses bright colors, creates figures that express emotions that anyone who is to gaze upon them would empathize with. I cannot really explain how Yiakou does it but the city is more beautiful or better say more human with his touch in it. Every piece of art Yiakou creates in these streets is a small lesson about humanity, love and how despite the struggles light is always waiting for you at the end of the way.
This year, Yiakou shall present a new project in different spots in the city of Athens. Filling all grown up, the artist decides to give us the chance to travel with him by leaving the classic street art stage for a more pop and abstract still life form of art. Being influenced by other great artists as Cezanne, Matiz and Pollock, Yiakou gives birth to an artistic result which passes on the message that 21st-century art has something to say and stand for.
If you feel the need to see his work you should take a stroll through the old streets of Athens and I am sure that you will spot a Yiakou original. For me, this is what inspires me to write and keep on dreaming and working hard to achieve my goals. You see if art can’t inspire you to create your own dream then what would be the hope in this world? Yiakou’s creations have been hosted in several art spaces such as “ArtAthina”, “Michalis Kakogiannis Institute” and other well-known spaces.
Reaching his 28 years of age, Yiakou is determined to keep on creating and begins to walk in a path of a more alternative way of communication in which the observer or simply anyone would produce his own memories and feelings through ART.