FARGO, ND.- In a new exhibit created especially for Plains Art Museum, Minnesota-based, international artist, Anne Labovitz, examines the complex and vital connection between creativity and well-being.

Convergence: Health & Creativity runs Nov. 16, 2024 through July 13, 2025.

The two-way interconnection between art and well-being has fascinated Labovitz for many years, and for her show at the Plains Art Museum she engaged with members of the Fargo-Moorhead health care community to create works that reflect what that looks like at the local level.

In addition to drawing upon her years of research, over a period of five months the artist conducted more than 40 interviews with local health care professionals and administrators. Labovitz then channeled their responses into her art through a process she calls interpretive listening using abstracted text, mark making and informed color selection.

“This exhibition is an experiment in how color, light and atmosphere can provide a path to well-being and even spark joy,” explains Labovitz. “I wanted to examine how creativity, and self- expression are connected to health and happiness, and create a sense of visual optimisim.”

Convergence: Art and Health explores this connection of well-being and art via more than a dozen new paintings, sculptures, and public participatory works. A highlight of the exhibition is The Human Condition, a large sculpture that will hang from the museum’s Ruth and Seymour Landfield Atrium ceiling in huge, sweeping accordion folds. Created from 300 linear feet of Tyvek®, the piece is painted on both sides in a saturated palette of blue and purple – colors that reflect the artist’s interpretation of her interviews with members of the local community. Labovitz also uses natural light as an intentional medium in this artwork. Visitors will note how the sculpture changes throughout the day as light moves through and interacts with the translucency of the Tyvek®.

Another notable highlight of the show is the interactive installation, Well-Being Wall II. This participatory section is an invitation for visitors to create their own artwork and display it as part of the exhibition. Guests are asked to answer the question: What does well-being mean to you? Using six-inch painted squares created by the artist, they will write or draw their answers on the square, and then add them on a hanging grid. This then becomes an ever-evolving element of the exhibition.

Convergence: Health & Creativity runs through July 13, 2025.

Labovitz received a BA in Art and Psychology, with a minor in Art Education and Art History, from Hamline University in St. Paul, MN (1989), and an MFA from Transart, Plymouth University, in New York City and Berlin (2017). She has an extensive national and international exhibition history and her art is held in many private and public collections, including the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport; the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis; the Minnesota Marine Art Museum, Winona, MN; the Minnesota Museum of American Art, St. Paul, MN; the Tweed Museum of Art, Duluth, MN; the Athenaeum Music and Arts Library, La Jolla, CA; the Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, MN; the International Portrait Gallery, Bosnia- Herzegovina; Växjö Kommun, Sweden; Isumi City Offices, 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.