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Crazy Pablo: Shards of an Empire
Sometimes art touches a detail so small, so seemingly incidental, that it turns out to be the elephant in the room. That is the moment when art stops merely reflecting reality and begins to feel almost prophetic.
Inbal Zakai
April 05, 2026
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Gone with the Wind
Two shattered porcelain plates, their blue-and-white surfaces fractured into shards, seem at first like the remains of something lost. But then something strange happens: the images once trapped in the stillness of the ceramic begin to move.
What we are looking at is not simply a broken object, but a scene in the middle of an awakening. For centuries, these ships, coastlines, birds, and ornamental vines existed as decorative motifs - suspended in silence on the surface of porcelain, fixed in place, almost asleep. Here, the break becomes an act of release. The shards pull apart, and suddenly the imagery spills out beyond the limits of the plate: ships sail forward into open space, birds cut across the white void, and delicate tendrils unfurl like something alive. It is as if the image had been waiting inside the object all this time, and only through fracture could it finally breathe.
Fun Facts
The entire series began with an accident - a porcelain plate inherited from his wife’s late mother slipped and shattered. Instead of trying to glue it back together, Robert Strati turned the break itself into the starting point of a new visual world. A New York–based American artist with a background in art history, Strati is known for transforming fragments into expansive ink-drawn landscapes and dreamlike scenes.
 Detail from Fragmented in Blue with Ships, Sails and Seagulls by Robert Strati, 2024, broken porcelain fragments and ink on paper, 102 × 97 cm.  Detail from Fragmented in Blue with Ships, Sails and Seagulls by Robert Strati, 2024, broken porcelain fragments and ink on paper, 102 × 97 cm. | Think About ItWhen we walk through archaeological sites or learn about ancient civilizations, we are often left with only shards -pieces of pottery, broken walls, traces of what was once whole, powerful, and alive. And yet, those fragments are enough to awaken the imagination. Robert Strati’s work feels almost like that. A broken object that suddenly begins to tell the story of an entire world. Sometimes I wonder if we are also witnessing, in real time, the slow transformation of a civilization - perhaps even the Europe we know today. |
How does it relate to the here and now? or What to say during casual conversation to show off your art knowledge?
What is quietly fading - “What I love here is that the work seems to speak about something much larger than broken porcelain. The shards begin to feel like the remains of an entire civilization. It makes you wonder whether Europe itself is slowly changing in front of our eyes, not disappearing overnight, but transforming so gradually that we barely notice it while living inside it.”
What history keeps repeating -“History is full of empires and cultures that once seemed permanent, only to survive later as ruins and fragments that awaken our imagination. Looking at this work, it’s hard not to wonder whether the Europe we know today is also shifting beneath our feet - becoming something new while part of its old identity quietly fades.”
Now have another Look!
And If You’re Up for More…
Walk through the ruins of an empire. Visit Roman Forum or Palatine Hill and let the fragments do the work. Broken columns, worn stones, and scattered remnants still carry the weight of an entire civilization.
A city built on layers of civilizations. Walk through Athens and up to the Acropolis of Athens. Few places make you feel more intensely how whole worlds can survive through fragments.
Till next time, Maybe one day, what feels solid and certain now will remain only in fragments, carried by memory and by the wind. Hit reply or drop me a comment.
Yours,
Inbal Z M
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