Mary Ingebrand-Pohlad has been a working artist for 40+ years. She holds BFA and MFA degrees from the University of Minnesota.

She worked as a public muralist completing seven murals around the Midwest. Her work has been exhibited widely in galleries around the United States. She has been an art instructor and an artist in residence at various schools and community colleges.

Her work is included in over 250 private and corporate art collections as well as in 2 museum collections.

Ms. Ingebrand-Pohlad divides her time between her Minnesota and California studios and is currently the Executive Producer of an independent documentary film on the Mexican migrant workers of Coachella Valley.

Artist’s Statement

My art flows from my deeply personal connections to the human experience and the environment around me. The contours of everyday life are transformed into my contours, from the human figure to a still life or to a landscape.

In my  contour line drawings of the figure, rendered very quickly as  2 minute “warm ups”, my goal is to sum up the essence of the figure - it's gesture and mass with an economy of line. The figurative bronze sculptures are an expressionistic 3D extension of my drawings. 

Still life studies which I compose, are studies in light, pattern and texture. My gardens are a great source of inspiration and I find the same lyricism in the graceful bend of a stem as I do in the gesture of the figure!

The pastel landscapes are inspired by my travels. Migrants working in the fields are scenes of everyday life which I pass en route to the schools where I volunteer in Thermal and Mecca, California. The portraits were inspired by people staying at Our Lady of Guadalupe Shelter In Mecca, CA which I built in 2018. These portraits and the powerful stories behind the faces which inspired and informed me, have culminated in a documentary film on the lives of the Mexican migrant workers in the Coachella Valley. As Executive Producer of the independent film, COACHELLA VALLEY, my personal connections to the human condition here will come to life through the film, to be released late fall 2020.