The Life is a new chapter in Tony Fitzpatrick’s drawing-collage series, The Wonder: A Portrait of Chicago. The Life is a somewhat darker chapter; some of the stories are real, some are imagined. The stories portrayed in this new group of works involve monsters, call girls and gamblers. The works included in the first two series tended to be on the dreamy side, while this third group has monsters, madness and vice—”the stuff they don’t put in the travel brochures” according to Fitzpatrick.

The Life is a chapter about the atmosphere of the city, of its dark places and covert wells of desire. In it you will meet its victims and its survivors. In the first two volumes of The Wonder, Fitzpatrick presents the city as a glorious place of immense beauty and charm. He introduces us to its great heroes and its magnificent architecture, and recalls the most triumphant moments of its history. These drawing-collages require a unique sort of reading: they are at once visual and verbal…. (Mickey Cartin, 2006)

Fitzpatrick begins each drawing-collage by drawing or painting central elements. He then incorporates collage elements from a vast collection of matchbook covers, ticket stubs and other memorabilia, into the configuration. Each piece develops in a different way; sometimes the drawing pushes the story and picture forward, sometimes the collage elements do.