MiamiPhotoFest Presents

More Beautiful Broken

Kerry Payne Stailey

MiamiPhotoFest presents the premiere of Kerry Payne Stailey’s new exhibit, “More Beautiful Broken”, a collection of intimate photo essays that at once give voice to many who suffer in silence and also offer hope; images that show life is a constant movement, a flow of energy. What may draw us down today can change with the break of a new dawn.

© KERRY PAYNE STAILEY

Personal tragedies led Kerry to photography and through her projects, which explore the eternal themes of birth and death, she has not only found comfort for herself, but for countless others who identify with her images.    

In "More Beautiful Broken," Kerry brings together images from several distinct bodies of work: Left Behind, My Father's Daughter, The Children (I Never Had), Sonar Madre and Instant Love Story.

Her long term project “Left Behind” probes the complicated grief facing those left behind when somebody they love dies by suicide. This intimate narrative is prompted her own loss. Her father died by suicide in 2001.

"My Father's Daughter" honors the period of depression Kerry entered in her mid-life and reflects upon the parallels between her and her father, and her deeply held fear of meeting a destiny similar to his.

“The Children (I Never Had)” and “Sonar Madre” pay tribute to the bloody emotional battle of hope and loss, played out month after month, behind doors, by millions of women worldwide in their fruitless quest to become mothers.

As a counterweight to the more sombre subject matter of these bodies of work, is the joyous and uplifting "Instant Love Story." Here Kerry shares the love she has found with her husband, a story she has been documenting since the day they met. “Instant Love Story” began as a respite to Kerry’s emotionally challenging projects dealing with suicide, depression, addiction and infertility. It became the essential thread that held her together, a daily reminder of the beauty this life can offer. Of the joyful unexpected.

Drawing inspiration from the Japanese tradition of repairing broken pottery with gold, Kerry Payne Stailey honors the fractures we suffer, the threads that bind us, and the seams that stitch us back together, more beautiful, broken. 

More Beautiful Broken - will be on display at MiamiPhotoFest 2019 - Feb 27th - Mar 3rd.

Opening night RSVP, Limited Availability

All Prints are signed and available for sale during this event.

Kerry Payne Stailey is an Australian photographer based in Maine and Greater New York. She is drawn to the healing power of photography – a tool she uses for exploring and acknowledging emotions as guides to the path of happiness. For her, intimate visual storytelling is a means to sharing the powerful alchemy that is ‘hurting, to healing, to helping.  In 2015 she was named ‘Photographer of the Year’ (Moving Images) by the Lucie Foundation, which honors the greatest achievements in photography. Her photography has been published and exhibited internationally.