Mentor Highlight / Anne Labovitz

Check out our interview with current mentor Anne Labovitz!

Thanks for being a part of the MFA program! Can you tell us a little bit about your creative practice?
I am a contemporary artist dedicated to making artworks that are urgent, participatory and unrepentantly beautiful. I work in a variety of mediums and make artwork that challenges isolation, loneliness and disconnection by activating color and space. The local context and creating connections with others is embodied in my creative process and public interventions through public practice. For me color is an energy; a life force. In my practice, I use color and dialogue to create experimental site-specific work designed to engage a visceral and emotional place for viewers. My process and concepts are responsive to the current socio political moment. Color goes beyond language in my work, transforming the space in which it is viewed. I seek to understand what role artists have as a catalyst for change. I also actively exhibit and create work, believing that a rigorous daily studio practice, as well as continual shows and projects, challenges me to propel my practice forward. I have an international and national studio and public art practice while also being firmly rooted in the local. Being an anti-racist art activist and sharing resources and professional practices are passions of mine.
What do you enjoy most about being a mentor?
I love to work with artists. I meet the MFA candidate with focus on their practice and vision. My role is to help them develop their praxis. I love engaging in rigorous, durational conversations around my mentee’s work and artistic practice. I relish in sharing my own practice, modeling the rigorous, daily schedule that facilitates professional development. Through deep interrogation of concepts and artworks as a platform for creative exchange helps the mentee find their own unique path in their practice.
What are your goals as a mentor?
My teaching philosophy includes an approach called I/Thou, a relational listening process written about by Martin Buber which addresses the connection between any two individuals. I employ rigorous dialogue and varied mediums in my praxis, which allows me to teach adaptively according to different approaches to making and thinking. I love working closely and equally with others, engaging students in a reciprocal exchange of ideas and practice. Goals include facilitating movement towards mentee’s goals; supporting the mentee; and helping them to discover and develop their own voice, unique lexicon and practice.

Photos provided by Anne Labovitz

For more information about Anne Labovitz’s work, visit:

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