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Joseph Mougel Headshot

Joseph Mougel

  • Professor (on sabbatical 2025-26), Photography & Imaging
  • Area Head, Photography & Imaging

Education

  • Master of Fine Art, Studio Art - Photography, University of New Mexico, 2008
  • Bachelor of Fine Art, Photography, University of Georgia, 2005

Biography

After serving as a combat correspondent in the US Marine Corps, Joseph Mougel completed a BFA in studio art from the University of Georgia and a MFA in photography from the University of New Mexico, where he also studied video, performance, and interactive media. He participated in the field-based studio program Land Arts of the American West, during which he created works set against the landscape of the Wendover Airforce Base and other desert environs that drew upon his experience in the military. He has continued to create site-responsive work at artist residencies, first building an immersive installation of WWII military surplus at Elsewhere Artists Collaborative, then transitioning to ecological investigations at Ucross Foundation, Iowa Lakeside Laboratory, and Art Farm, among others. In these works, he positions the human actor in situations (the military industrial complex, invasive species encroachment, change of the seasons, etc.) that ultimately render their labors futile.

In his field-based investigations, Mougel views his research as a partnership with the environment. He embraces the idiosyncrasies of found material, whether capturing trails of debris left by boring insects, deriving toning colors from botanical specimens, or processing chemical interactions among dirt, trash, and darkroom chemistry. The unique characteristics of these elements result in a diverse collection of imagery, reflecting the distinct histories and ecologies of the spaces he samples.

Mougel’s practice entails a collaboration between capture-based tools and creative methodologies, responding to specific places and ecologies. Many projects incorporate contemporary approaches to image making, such as screenshots from Google Earth or generative AI images derived from models trained on his own photographs. Mougel then translates these recent imaging innovations into historical outputs, like ambrotypes or toned cyanotypes, referencing the technological roots of the photographic medium. This compression of time reinforces the hypermediacy of the work, employing material and compositional aesthetics that span the history of photography, ever-making visible the photographic object.

His work is held in collections, including the Nevada Museum of Art, University of New Mexico Art Museum, and the New Mexico Museum of Art. Mougel is the head of the Photography & Imaging area at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Links

Recent & Selected Works

Two chemograms of leaves
Mineralzation: 0006 & 0023; 8×10 in. hybrid lumin prints / chemograms using site specific soils and plants
Two hybrid toned cyanotypes of plants
Second Nature: Echofern-🌿🕯️ & Moonveil-Fern-🌙🌿; hybrid toned cyanotype / cupric print from AI images generated from model trained by artist
Photo from above of moss growing on a rock in a bio lab
Herbarium: Mossery; 20×28 in. archival pigment print of still life constructed in biology lab
Large flattened circle of dirt in razed cornfield
FlatLand; Earthwork completed during artist residency at Art Farm, Marquette, NE
Two images of a frozen lake unshoveled (left) and partially shoveled (right)
Effortless: 47:23:51; 3 44×55 in. archival pigment print from 4×5 in. negative based on durational performance shoveling frozen lake
Pixelated ambrotype of Devils Tower with digital location markers
Silver Pixels: Devils Tower after William Henry Jackson; 28×20 in. ambrotype from Google Earth image
Hole; performance video produced at and in response to the Wendover Air Force Base where the Enola Gay Bomber was once based
Luscinia Xanthoplasticus; performance video produced during artist residences at Lakeside Laboratories, IA

Artistic Exhibitions & Artwork

  • Mougel, Joseph; Brinich-Langlois, Cynthia. Above Low Tide. 2024, Wisconsin Lutheran College, Milwaukee, WI; 2017, Minnesota State University-Moorhead, Moorhead, MN.
  • Mougel, Joseph. Herbarium. 2022, James Watrous Gallery, Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters, Madison, WI; 2018, Ploch Gallery, Sharen Lynn Wilson Center, Brookfield, WI.

Creative Works Published/Cited by Others

Crist, Steve. The Contact Sheet, pp. 122-125, AMMO, 2012.

Grants/Funded Research

Established Artist Category, Mary L. Nohl Fund Fellowship for Individual Artists, 2016, Milwaukee, WI

Notable

  • Art Farm Artist Residencies, 2025, Marquette, NE
  • ArtServancy Fellowship, 2024, Gallery 224, Port Washington, WI
  • Cedar Point Biological Station Artist Residencies, 2018, Ogallala, NE
  • Montello Foundation Artist Residencies, 2017, Montello, NV
  • Iowa Lakeside Laboratory Artist Residencies, 2016, Milford, IA
  • Ucross Foundation Artist Residencies, 2013, Ucross, WY
  • Lecture: Reimagining Landscapes. SPE: ONLINE, Society for Photographic Education, 2025.
  • Lecture: Collaborations with the Natural World: Experiments, Follies, and Discoveries. MWSPE Conference, Chicago, IL, 2023.
  • Lecture: Herbarium. James Watrous Gallery, Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters, Madison, WI, 2022.
  • Lecture: (Un)Natural Cycles: Air, Water, Land. Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, CO, 2019.
  • Lecture: From Silver Crystals to Landscape Pixels. Haggerty Museum of Art, Milwaukee, WI, 2017.