More Beautiful Broken

Share on social media

Photographer

Kerry Payne Stailey
Prize

1st Place / Analog / Film/Other
Socials
Website

http://www.kerrypaynestailey.net
Moving Link

View link

"More Beautiful Broken" is revelatory and insightful about the ways we live our lives; 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. 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.

Biography

Kerry Payne Stailey’s work is revelatory and insightful about the ways we live our lives; 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. 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.
Awards

She has studied photography, documentary film making and writing at the International Center of Photography, School of Visual Arts and New York University. In 2015 she was named ‘Photographer of the Year’ by the Lucie Foundation in the Moving Images category. Her photography has been published and exhibited internationally. A partial list of publications includes Pro Photo (Australia), Time Lightbox, New York Times Lensblog, Marie Claire (Italy and Brazil), Esquire, The Sydney Morning Herald, Revista Photo Magazine (Brazil), The Huffington Post and Burn Magazine, among others. Kerry has participated in photography related panel discussions with Aperture and the New School, and the International Center of Photography in NYC, and at Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University and St Lawrence University, NY. Her nonprofit clients include The United Nations Foundation, where she is a Senior Fellow of #instacorp and the American Foundation For Suicide Prevention. She is on the Board of Directors for the initiative 1in20, providing a platform for people living with mental illness, and their caregivers, to share their experiences through the art of visual storytelling.

Story

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), 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 by 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, reflects upon the parallels between her and her father, and challenges her deeply held fear of meeting a destiny similar to his.

“The Children (I Never Had)” pays 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.