By Janet Kozachek, Founding President,
Society of American Mosaic Artists

Ellen Stern is a one-woman museum of art.    A brilliant colorist, a complex conceptualist, a restrained minimalist, Ellen Stern strides boldly through the plethora of her varied media. She is a multi-talented, multimedia artist who dares to follow the vicissitudes of human relationships to each other, to their histories, and to their environments through  equally varied visual expressions. 

Ms. Stern takes the viewer on a journey through various states of being.  The work can be exuberant, irreverent, intellectual and deceptively naive.  Ellen Stern brings the viewer face-to-face with irony, fearlessly poking fun at the art world - as evinced by her homage to Dadaism in such works as “Chess Board on Roller Skates.” A rare, warm-hearted iconoclast, Ms. Stern can create works that might mimic the pretentiousness of contemporary art installations.  But upon close scrutiny, we see that a seemingly monumental installation may be nothing more than an explosion upon a pithy yet humorous pun.  This is not to say that the work is not ingenious, because it is indeed..  In fact, in viewing the complexity of many of the works I am always impressed by the intense intellectual power that must have been exerted in its concept and creation.

Breathtaking in its scope, Ellen Stern’s work is intensely engaging.  One feels the sublime within the prosaic in a work like “The Bronx I Remember.”  In the blocked view - the monotony of the repeated bricks there is a bittersweet sense of comfort that one takes from the promise of protection by the wall and the siren callings to freedom from the swaying white and yellow laundry. 

One could easily become confused by the complexity of Ellen Stern’s work and the seemingly capricious turns in style.  Yet there is a thread of continuity in the midst of the shifting media.  There is a sensual yet intellectual regard for the tactile qualities of a multitude of stuff.  A captivating narrative  compels the viewer to ask for more, like a child begging a favorite aunt to tell him yet another story.  So rather than attempt to fit Ellen Stern into an easily understood niche, it behooves us all to simply settle in for the ride and sit back to hear the tales.

--- Janet Kozachek, Founding President, Society of American Mosaic Artists