Most iconic Greek ruin of the 20th century? Stunning wild street art adorning an abandoned Greek island hotel

An article by photographer Anne-Marie de Grazia in Q-Mag first alerted me (back in 2018) to the newly-painted, stunning murals over some of the many walls of this long-abandoned Naxos island hotel , which had just appeared in the last week of June 2018. It was around twenty years earlier that I had first visited the hotel (thanks to Greek-based friend Marq Riley who helped pull together The Big Chill Naxos)

From the WD (Wild Draw­ing) website “WD was born and raised on Bali, Indone­sia, and has degrees in both Fine Arts and Applied Arts. He started off as urban artist in 2000 and from that time he spends most of his time to work in the streets — his work can be found in Asia, Europe and Amer­ica — although he never stopped work­ing in his stu­dio. WD is based in Athens, Greece.”

The numerous hotel walls, part of the derelict shell of what was proposed in the 1970s, to be one of grandest luxury hotels in the southern Mediterranean, are situated at Alyko, on the Island of Naxos, Cyclades, Greece. Building work was halted and the forest returned to the Greek state for protection.

They have arguably become the most iconic Greek ruin of the 20th century. Anne-Marie aptly described the artworks and the remains of the hotel as “a monument to grandiose shattered dreams, political compromissions, and dubious legal and business practices.”

WD has painted murals in Greece, the Netherlands, Sweden, Canada, Germany, Finland, Malta, as well as in his native Indonesia and this Naxos work is now attracting many tourists to a this ruin, gloriously situated on a headland in a cedar forest which shelters wild rabbits, birds and other animals and was declared a protected area by Natura 2000. WD’s earlier work can be seen here