ARTWEEK

Volume 12, Number 44, December 26, 1981

For the month of December and to augment, the Christmas season, the Janus Gallery has chosen to exhibit a series of collages by Ellen Stavitsky.

Ellen Stavitsky's small-scale collages inhabit the inner hallways of the Janus Gallery and, in spite of their modest size, quietly present their exquisite presences for our delectation. These carefully framed miniatures have been assembled by an eye of subtle concentration and emotion. At once deeply focused and mutely distanced, they demonstrate the efforts of an artist whose keen sense of texture and tone evokes the sprightly spirit of Motherwell's notable NRF collage series and transports it further.

These unobtrusive, intelligent collages, many times removed from Shire's flowery furnishings in the front rooms of the gallery, jostle segments of printed words and special selections of paper like transfigured fragments drawn magnetically towards their own centers.

Stavitsky's works neither proclaim nor intrude but, instead, invite the contemplation of the thoughtful and unhurried spectator. They contain treasures.

Mac McCloud