Tomorrow [Friday, September 2] is the last day to see The Chicago Project IV exhibition. We will even be open until 7 pm tonight for First Thursdays, so stop in after work—then you can head to one of these restaurants for special offers.

Below are three images by Chicago Project artist, Matt Austin, along with his artist statement. If you’d like to learn more about his work, visit the show page and click on the film clapper next to his images.

Wake is a photographic narrative that represents the struggles that have affected my family over the past few years. The work began with my father being violently evicted while I was studying at a college in Ireland. It has now continued throughout the difficult following two years that have brought his resultant homelessness and three deaths in our extended family. The narrative is comprised of my photographs and writing, along with excerpts of e-mails from my dad while I was abroad. By making metaphorical connections between our present economic time and physical death, I use this work to serve as a kind of elegiac ceremony for these trying experiences. Wake functions as my personal understanding of our situation and an example of a story that is unfortunately familiar to so many others living in this generation.

—Matt Austin