Furlong Gallery

Joshua Fusco’s work is influenced by the tradition of analog photographic techniques. Beginning with a fascination with the chemical process of the analog medium, Fusco began his work with a concentration in large format photography and alternative approaches to image making. This excitement for alternative processes has continued throughout his work. Here at the University of Wisconsin Stout, Fusco is majoring in Graphic Communications and working on a Minor in Photography and Video. 

For this body of work, Fusco has stepped away from alternative process and large format cameras to focus on creating a more spontaneous style; redefining his distinct visual language. He describes this action of visual exploration as “constant, ongoing, and Perpetual”. He believes photography can express the shared experience in an interesting and unique way without relying on the confining traditional benchmarks that immersed his early work. In this current generation of photography, the tools to create technically sound photographs are accessible to a massive audience, creating space for new definitions of what engaging photography might look like. The exhibit Perpetual explores this idea by challenging image making norms and highlighting the performance of individuality.

Pheng Thao is a Studio Art Major with a concentration in Photography, his practice includes photographic and installation-based work that showcase a renewed interest in Hmong identity. His cultural identity as a child didn’t interest him at first. Now as an adult, he uses his artistic practice to seek knowledge on being Hmong and understand that part of his identity more deeply. He explores, discovers, and scrutinizes cultural issues affecting this generation through the lens of someone who is learning. His work represents the complex identity of being both Hmong and American.

Throughout years of external research, learning, and exposure to the culture, Pheng has been away from home. Now his desire to return, is not only to re-branch the bridge between himself and his parents, but to sprout newer paths through personal growth. By unraveling its history as well as utilizing the knowledge and processes that he has accumulated, Pheng hopes to create works of art that reconstruct personal memories and emotions, to a universal surface.