OOE ARTIST FEATURE: INGELA STROMBERG – OIL PAINTER AND NEIGHBOURHOOD BUILDER

From the June 2025 Issue

Ingela Stromberg’s connections to Old Ottawa East (OOE) run long and deep. She has known OOE artist John Jarrett since 1982 when he was a superintendent of schools and she was a social work consultant. Jarrett founded the life drawing group at the Mainworks Artists Collective that continues to this day. Stromberg joined the group early in her retirement in 2003, when she also began taking classes at the Ottawa School of Art.

Throughout her life, Stromberg has explored several different art forms, pursuing black and white photography at Carleton University’s School of Architecture, pottery, weaving, drawing, and painting. “I came from an artistic family,” she says. “I am from Sweden where my grandmother, mother, aunts, and sister all practised art in different forms. As a young person, I could see that I had some natural talent. When my mother passed away in 1999, she left behind her paintings and one small blank canvas. As I held that canvas, it was as if I was saying: ‘Here I am, Mom.’”

At the start of her first drawing class, Stromberg told her teacher that her goal was to paint in oils like her grandmother, sister, and mother. “I asked him to tell me when I had the skills and even before the end of the course he said: ‘You are ready!’” Once she began taking classes in painting, she did landscapes, human figures, portraits, and abstracts. “As I mention these genres, each of my teachers appear before my eyes. Every year, I would take classes in both school terms and then paint on my own during the summers.”

Stromberg has painted in acrylics but finds that they dry too fast. “Oil suits me. It is forgiving and a bit like working in clay because you can change things while they are still damp—move them over and even remove all the paint! Certain pigments dry at different paces, but you learn this.”

Although Stromberg sometimes goes back to using pencils or acrylics for the life drawing gatherings (which now take place at the Brentwood Park field house), she much prefers bringing oil paints to the sessions. “I see them as practice. I set up the paintings at home afterwards and think about whether they work or not. I may paint over them the following week; it is fun to see the other paintings showing through as I play with these pieces.”

Stromberg has taken on the challenge of painting with a limited palette. “This is also known as the Zorn palette, named after Swedish painter Anders Zorn,” she says. “He used a four-colour palette of Mars Black, Cadmium Red, Yellow Ochre, and White.” This requires the mixing of colours, and, it is said, inspires the artist to rely more on lightness and darkness to create depth and focus on composition. It also adds visual cohesiveness. Stromberg discovered early on that she had a talent for mixing colours “I can look at a plant leaf and know exactly what colours go into it.”

Years ago, Stromberg had shoulder surgery requiring a six-month recovery that prohibited her from working at an easel. She had been saving wood pieces such as baseboards, molding, and corners from home repair projects and thought she would see what she could make with them. One day, when she had five of her grandchildren (ranging in ages from five to sixteen) visiting, she gave each of them a wood panel and the same selection of small pieces and suggested they create their own designs by gluing the pieces to the panels. “I told them not to go outside the edges, but one of them refused to listen (thank goodness) and that particular piece was especially interesting. Each child created a completely different picture – one on a marine theme, another with sport motifs. Afterwards, I painted all five of their creations white and hung them in our home.”

Since then, Stromberg has been creating her own wood pieces, taking a similar approach. She began by building little neighbourhoods. She sees potential in other “found items” to incorporate (like a sherry cork, clothes peg, or doorknob, for example) and includes toy vehicles, toy animals, and makes little trees out of twigs. Sometimes she makes merely decorative pieces.

Stromberg has participated in numerous art exhibitions over the years, including four solo exhibitions, and she will also participate in her second OOE outdoor art tour, A Walk of Art this September 20 (rain date September 21).

Stromberg has also volunteered to work with Angie O’Connor, owner of Ears on Main, to coordinate a rotating showcase of local artists’ works. Although O’Connor and Stromberg are in the planning stages, this could become yet another OOE jewel. Please contact Ingela Stromberg by email at: istromberg111@gmail.com or by phone at: 613-715-0507 if you have an interest in displaying your art there.

Author Tanis Browning-Shelp (http://www.browning-shelp.com) pens her Maryn O’Brien Young Adult Fiction series, published by Dog-Eared Books, from her home in Old Ottawa East.  Contact tanis@browning-shelp.com if you have information about artists or art events that you believe would enrich our community members’ lives.