"A Broken Beauty" draws from the recent output of fourteen North American artists who work in figurative and narrative modes. As Postmodern artists, crossing the threshold of the 21st century, each engages the human condition and explores non-traditional notions of beauty in the human body. This occurs when they introduce brokenness (physical, mental, and spiritual) into their renderings of human embodiment. As a result, they turn the long tradition of Western idealization of beauty on its head and inside out. For the viewer, this means an invitation to contemplate the body's capacity for beauty despite brokenness, in the midst of brokenness, and, ironically, because of brokenness. Viewers of the images in "A Broken Beauty" are challenged to be present to the struggle and grace emerging from deeply personal stories, historical and sacred narratives, and the terrors of history that shaped yesterday and will give us tomorrow.