“We’re all storytellers.

It’s been like that since the dawn of time”, Erico Smit says. And just like the images people painted onto walls thousands of years ago, his drawings contain a wealth of stories. They are tales distilled to their very essence, the result of studious research and hours of observation. Yet his organic linework always retains a strong sense spontaneity and urgency. This is owed in equal parts to his sketch-like style, and the almost journalistic art he applies it to.

Smit’s process deliberately steers clear of the modern media demand to constantly churn out content. “I’m not drawing to satisfy an algorithm”, he states. “That can’t be what it’s about.” His methods fully clicked in 2020, when he was selected as an official Rotterdam city illustrator, tasked with ‘capturing the city in the year of the pandemic’. His knack for portraying the core of a story in the most succinct visual way possible, made him a natural fit for the project. Further exploring this documentative approach to drawing, Smit chooses to let the subject dictate the end result, chronicling life how he sees it.