Robert Strati: Layers

Robert Strati
Layers Installation View

Robert Strati: Layers, an exhibition of 6 new three dimensional wall works that explore unseen realities. Strati, who’s name means layers in Italian, uses ubiquitous materials like clear packing tape and steel wire to create whimsical, layered compositions that appear to float off the wall. The resulting shadows add to the subtle suggestion or implication of spaces beyond what can be easily seen and that might lie somewhere between the surface of the sculptural object and the wall.

With influences ranging from the mystical minimalism of Kasimir Malevich to Da Vinci’s notebooks, Guglielmo Marconi, Agnes Martin, Leslie J. "Airplane" Payne to Gego, and Eva Hesse, Strati coalesces these influences into fanciful and sometimes whimsical compositions that reveal aspects of our reality that are unseen but experienced. An engagement with space both two and three-dimensional is central to his studio practice and serves as a platform to explore the enigmatic, pseudo-scientific aspects of our shared experience.

Fields, the largest piece in the exhibition is the result of a unique process, which began as an installation at the Children’s Museum of the Arts, NYC and has taken over two years to complete. The 9 panels that constituted the installation lasting six months were suspended from the ceiling along a hallway creating transparent maze-like space for the children to interact with and explore. Once the exhibition ended the panels returned to Strati’s studio where they were reconfigured and reconstituted into the new work encompassing the ideas and activity of the previous two years.

Strati’s works are abstract explorations of the reality beyond the reality we readily see and experience. Through the use of transparent panels layered onto each other, the work encourages the viewer to literally perceive deeper into the piece itself. This allows for multilayered observations that facilitate seeing beyond what is just in front of our eyes.

During the opening reception of the Layers exhibition 10% of sales of Strati’s work will be donated to the Children’s Museum of the Arts and for the entire run of the exhibition 10% of the sale of Fields will be donate to the museum as well.