The Darkness Beyond Tomorrow by Matthew Crowther

“The people dreamed and fought and slept as much as ever. And by habit they shortened their thoughts so that they would not wander out into the darkness beyond tomorrow.” - Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

The photographs in this body of work, The Darkness Beyond Tomorrow, are narratives of the people and places that have shaped my relationship to the world at large. Blending fiction and autobiography, they tell a story of a life shaped by the insecurity of living paycheck to paycheck in a small town. They are about the feeling of hitting the road with nowhere in particular to go, finding someone to sit in the passenger seat only to end up feeling more alone. They depict the consequences of decisions that from the outside may seem problematic, or even self destructive, but that are really a way of coping with the fragility of the future. The purpose of the work is to neither criticize nor romanticize this way of life, but to inspire empathy on the part of the viewer and to provide a counter narrative to the stereotypes and preconceived notions about the world I am depicting.

Matthew Crowther lives and works in Chicago, IL
To view more of Matthew's work, please visit his website.

You can purchase the photograph "Ohio" from Fraction Editions.