Finding Beauty in the Broken: Rob Strati's Transformative Art of Fragmented Porcelain
There's something profoundly moving about taking what's shattered and making it whole again—not by hiding the breaks, but by celebrating them. Artist Rob Strati has built his most acclaimed work on this very principle, transforming broken antique plates into stunning mixed-media pieces that speak to memory, loss, and cultural fragmentation.
Watch our full interview with Rob.
The Accidental Beginning
Like many great artistic discoveries, Strati's signature work began with an accident and a gesture of love. When his mother-in-law's cherished plate broke, rather than discarding it, he saw an opportunity. The plate featured a classic chinoiserie pattern—one of those quintessentially "Asian" designs actually created in 1780s London—and Strati envisioned extending its imagery beyond the ceramic fragments.
"I had this vision, and it wasn't as much an idea. It was just an accident and a vision," he explains. What started as a tribute to his wife Jocelyn and her mother evolved into something far more expansive.
The Poetry of Fragments
Strati's process is both controlled and chaotic. He drops plates from roughly four feet onto a rock placed in a cardboard box, allowing the break to happen organically, though he's developed more precision over time. Then comes the meticulous work: drawing extensions of the plate's imagery onto paper, creating scenes where birds fly half-off fragments, bridges lead to nowhere, and pastoral scenes suggest worlds beyond what remains.
Each piece is mounted in a shadow box, the fragments reassembled but not hidden, the breaks visible and integral to the work. The glass adds another layer—literally and metaphorically—extending the porcelain quality of the plate while creating reflections that make each piece "sort of their own universe, even though they're expanding into another universe."
Breaking Down Hierarchy
What makes Strati's work particularly resonant now is its subtle political undercurrent. These aren't just broken plates—they're fractured pieces of colonial history, objects that once represented aspiration and social hierarchy. English and Dutch porcelain carry centuries of cultural baggage, and the simple act of breaking these plates becomes, in Strati's hands, a quiet dismantling of untouchable reverence.
"There's this untouchable aspect to it. You're brought up with sort of respect in the structure and how simply breaking a plate can kind of be an act of taking down that hierarchy," he notes. "It can be that simple."
The Universal Connection
When Strati first exhibited his work at an art fair, he witnessed something he'd never experienced in his previous career as an abstract and conceptual artist: immediate, emotional connection. Viewers would approach, initially seeing abstract patterns, then recognize the plates—their grandmother's china, their mother's inherited set, those dishes they didn't know what to do with.
"Everyone had this really personal story," he recalls. "And then what was happening with the plate, the continuation of the story and the evolution of the story was just something that people hadn't seen before."
The works range from 25 by 25 inches to 40 by 38 inches, each one taking about four weeks to complete. Some feature the geometric patterns of Blue Willow, others the botanical illustrations typical of English porcelain, still others the more abstract qualities of Delft blue.
The Act of Repair
Beyond the aesthetic and political dimensions, there's something deeply therapeutic in Strati's practice. He's literally repairing what's broken, but also metaphorically mending memory, reconciling past and present, and addressing historical wrongs.
"There's so much repair of memory, bringing history into something, bringing the present into something, so repairing the present, repairing wrongs that were done," he reflects. "It's actually very subtle, but those are feelings that I feel at different points in making them."
Looking Forward
Strati has embraced commissions, working with clients who send him meaningful broken plates or request pieces in specific styles. One woman even deliberately packaged her plate so it would break in shipping—a collaborative gesture that delighted him.
His ambitions? To see this work in major museums, carrying forward the legacy of his mother-in-law's elegance and his wife's belief that "this stuff can be at the best places."
In a world that often feels as fragmented as Strati's plates—where we're reckoning with colonial histories, cultural shifts, and painful transitions—his work offers a way forward. Not by pretending the breaks don't exist, but by acknowledging them, extending from them, and finding beauty in what remains and what might come next.
Sometimes the most profound art comes from the junk drawer, from the broken and discarded, from what we thought had lost its value. Strati reminds us to look closer, to see the extraordinary in the ordinary, and to understand that fragments can tell more complete stories than we ever imagined.
Following the remarkable success of Rob’s work over the past 18 months, we’re now accepting expressions of interest and building a waitlist on a first-come, first-served basis. Explore Rob’s work.