Artist Fixes Broken Plates By Creating Beautiful Drawings Around Them (8 Pics)

In an interview with DeMilked, Strati said, "This series was inspired by a plate from my wife's late mother, Barbara. It broke in late 2020 and sat on our kitchen island for a few months. As I would walk by I'd wonder what we should do with it, I didn't want to throw it away and thought I would just put it in the basement. It stayed on the island and we would shift it around, never taking it off the island, just moving it from one side to the other so it was out of the way for the mail or cutting vegetables. I started to think about stories that could be told beyond the borders of the broken piece. The broken piece of my mother-in-law's china had finally made its way from the kitchen island to my studio where it stayed on an empty sheet of paper for weeks. It had been months since I had picked it up off the floor and considered it in so many ways. One day, I picked up a pen and started working on "Fragmented", exploring the possibilities of things broken and the stories that can evolve from them." The artist also added, "Only after I made a few of the pieces did I start to see a relationship to Kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by filling in cracks with a mix of lacquer & gold or other precious metal. I love the Japanese tradition of wabi sabi, which is a philosophy of appreciating the flaws and imperfections in reality and I can see a parallel with those traditions and ideas to the "Fragmented" series." Strati also revealed, "I've heard from many people how this work is so unique and they have never seen anything quite like it, so I have started Porcelain Projects, an online gallery to showcase this work and hoping it can evolve to show the work of other artists who are exploring similar new forms of expression." Check out some of his wonderful works in the gallery below. More info: Website | Porcelain Projects | Instagram

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Image source: Robert Strati When we asked Strati about his creative process, he said, "In terms of the creative process, it is very involved. I will generally find a piece of china that has been damaged or is unusable and from the fragments piece together a composition from which I can begin to draw what my imagination sees in the missing space, often using motifs from the original plate. This is both grounding in the history of the original pattern, but also very liberating in being able to free the world of the plate and explore new possibilities. I often think of how new realities are made from times that can feel devastating, there is a process of confusion, reorientation, picking up the pieces, using what is left and moving into a new future."

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Image source: Robert Strati The artist further elaborated, "This work felt different from my previous work, which was more conceptual and had a lot to do with ideas. The "Fragmented" pieces were inspired by a love for my wife, Jocelyn Jane Cox, and mother-in-law, Barbara Cox. People will often talk about it being a good idea, but for me it was more about an accident and a gesture of love that happened very organically."

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Image source: Robert Strati

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Image source: Robert Strati

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Image source: Robert Strati

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Image source: Robert Strati

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Image source: Robert Strati

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Image source: Robert Strati