Joseph Mougel: Artist Now Lecture
Claire Haggarty

 Joseph Mougel, in addition to being the head of the photography department at UW-Milwaukee, was a guest speaker at our Artists Now! Lecture series.  Mougel uses a variety of styles and mediums while creating work and seems to draw quite a bit of inspiration from his time in the military. This is especially evident in his series Blanc. This specific series takes men and women in uniform and “white washes” them in away in order to strip them of an identity of sorts. I think it also allowed for a strong sense of disconnect as well as, in a way, erases traces of individuality from person to person.

Overall, I found the lecture to be very encouraging in the sense that our teachers have been able to find their own success with their work and that they will be able to advise us as well as we enter that stage in our own future careers.