Artist Hano Dercksen paints nostalgic cityscapes and seascapes using his signature style of graphic realism. Hano grew up in a small town on the east coast of South Africa, where he says the idea of pursuing art for a living was considered truly absurd. At the age of 19, he boarded a plane and traveled the world. Hano lived in the United States and spent a decade in Brazil before settling in Canada. "The shimmering variety of how people live their lives, their ideas of what art is, and the idea that every life is a unique and vibrant experience makes me bleed paint," says Hano. "The world is a big place and I have to draw it all." Today, he works as a carpenter, building and repairing structures, which provides an important source of inspiration for his paintings of daily life. Hano takes lots of reference photos of architecture and industrial equipment he sees on job sites, later studying and sketching the images in his home studio. From there, he slowly builds up layers of transparent paint, while "fighting the never ending battle to keep the art clean and smudge free."