Using a pen and paper, artist Rob Strati mends broken sentimental plates. The series, titled Fragmented, originated in 2020 when a plate belonging to his late mother-in-law broke. From there, Strati created a way to bring the remaining ceramic pieces to life, continuing the ornate designs into sprawling illustrations that find new life on a blank page.
Each of the works from this series is based around a real broken plate, which Strati places on the paper itself. Then, he uses a pen to fill in what is missing in the design, such as a windmill, a landscape, or animals. However, he does not simply return the plate to the way it looked before. Instead, Strati finds new pathways for the artwork, freeing the numerous elements from the constraints of the circular frame, and sending them spreading across the rest of the sheet of paper.