Anne Labovitz: Convergence: Health & Creativity

Anne Labovitz is a US-based artist who has forged a distinctive path in the arts with a practice centered on the intersection of art and well-being. Her prolific career, spanning over three decades, encompasses a wide range of media: painting, sculpture, installations, socially engaged work, public art, artist books, video, and prints. Labovitz is well-known for her work with the fabric-like surface of Tyvek. She uses vivid colors, radiant light, and abstracted text to create immersive experiences that invite viewers to explore the relationship between art and well-being. Labovitz’s artistic practice is grounded in research-based and engagement-led processes, aligning with the latest research on the psychological benefits of looking at art. 

Convergence: Health & Creativity (2024–25) builds on Labovitz’s previous work, highlighting art’s ability to foster connections and support collective healing. Themes of connection, seeing one another, community building, art and health, as well as creative relational exchange, are driving forces in her practice. The exhibition is anchored by a monumental site-specific artwork in the Plains Art Museum Ruth and Seymour Landfield Atrium. Billowing overhead, 380 feet of Tyvek soar in sublime color, inspiring an emotive response for the viewer. 

In the William and Anna Jane Schlossman Gallery, Labovitz presents three 3 x 3 feet light sculptures entitled “LightWindows,” each glowing with 134 LED lights beneath painted Tyvek. Light and color become metaphors. The artist created a bespoke sculpture of 24 x 16 x 4 feet Tyvek. Hung in an accordion-like fashion, the Tyvek drapes down from the ceiling and up again. Additionally, Labovitz introduces a new series entitled “Soft Works,” with an 8 x 24 x 1 feet metallic-painted Tyvek wall sculpture.

Social engagement is a continual thread in Labovitz’s practice. For the Plains, she has created a large-scale participatory Well-Being Wall II for visitors to make their own artwork on artist-created 6 x 6 inch squares, which they then hang in the gallery on a grid. Labovitz includes drawings or what she calls “Word Works.” These site-specific works on paper were developed from Labovitz’s interactions with individuals, community groups, and healthcare professionals in the greater Fargo-Moorhead area. Labovitz employs Relational Listening, a technique she developed involving attentive and meditative concentration on and with a subject. Inspired by philosophers Martin Buber and Viktor Frankl, Labovitz’s Relational Listening is rooted in the idea that it is a basic human need to be heard and feel seen. Through empathetic exchange, she transforms personal narratives into vibrant, meditative artworks, harnessing the healing potential of art. Interviewees answered questions, shared experiences, and proposed avenues to well-being. While each participant reflected on their own expertise and offered unique perspectives on well-being, the words–rest, community, hope, resilience, and love–repeatedly surfaced as threads linking the responses. Labovitz embeds these themes and specific words into the artworks in the exhibition. 

Convergence: Health & Creativity transforms the gallery into a participatory space that encourages creativity, contemplation, connection, and conversation. As visitors engage with these artworks that soothe and inspire, they are invited to consider their own journeys of self-expression and well-being. Labovitz’s work highlights her artistic vision and reinforces the essential connection between creativity and the human experience. 

Labovitz recent projects include: The Nexus of Well-Being and Art (2023–24), a Mayo Clinic commission, and 122 Conversations: Person to Person, Art Beyond Borders (2015–27). 

This exhibition is available to travel. 

Labovitz received a BA in Art and Psychology from Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota (1989) and an MFA from Transart, Plymouth University, UK (2017). She exhibits nationally and internationally and her work is held in many private and public collections, including the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota; the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport; Växjö Kommun, Sweden; Isumi City, Japan; the University of Raparin, Rania Iraqi Kurdistan; and the City of Petrozavodsk, Russia. Labovitz is currently Adjunct Professor and Mentor in the Master of Fine Arts program at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.