Building Bright Futures, in the Brew City celebrates the City of Milwaukee while simultaneously embracing its rich history and tremendous potential. The piece was created using water based acrylic paint on stretched heavyweight cotton canvas divided into three 8’ x 8’ panels.

The work merges Milwaukee’s blue-collar, working class history and its current growing arts and music scene. Combined, they create a vibrant and colorful collage that offers a window into the myriad of influences that have forged Milwaukee’s unique culture.

“Milwaukee is known for its iconic Cream City Brick, so I used the bricklayer as the center of the piece,” Gossel said. “But he’s in front of a record that is spinning around in the background. I think those different elements of the blue collar and the vibrant arts community are important to the history and future of Milwaukee and are what makes the city special.”

Using his past works on outdoor murals as a roadmap for the piece, Gossel uses bright colors to create a visual dynamic for observers that offers different experiences from far away and up close. As the viewer gets closer to the work, they notice the fine detail in the juxtaposing images that allows them to bring their own life experiences and interactions with Milwaukee into how they interpret the piece.

Growing up in Western Wisconsin, Gossel didn’t often get to visit Milwaukee but fell in love with the community while doing a project for the Milwaukee Bucks in 2018.

“It was cool to be immersed in the city and really get to spend a good amount of time in different parts of the city,” Gossel said. “The generosity of everyone in the city really sticks with me. I like to run, so a lot of mornings I’d run the RiverWalk and the random interactions were always awesome. I definitely tried to harness that while injecting life into this piece.”