Botis Thalassinos was born in 1927 in Heraklion, Crete. At the age of 10 he was awarded by the Ministry of Education for his portrait of Kolokotronis, which he had painted at school. He took lessons in icon painting in Heraklion and in 1956 he left for Brazil, where he studied painting at the Associação Paulista de Belas Artes and stage design at the School of Stage Design. Then, he settled for a long time in the USA.

He presented his work in numerous solo and group exhibitions, mainly in the USA (in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco), but also in London, Paris, Madrid, as well as in Greece (indicatively, his first exhibitions at Parnassos Literary Society in 1961 and 1967). He then returned to Crete, to Heraklion, where he turned his paternal home into an exhibition space of his works.

Botis Thalassinos died in 2017. Shortly before his death, he donated a large number of his works to the Municipality of Malevizi, Prefecture of Heraklion, and his works are currently exhibited in an art gallery which bears his name. He was a member of the Chamber of Fine Arts of Greece.