Site-Specific Storytelling Art: The Strong Enterprises Mural
The completed, hand-painted mural at Strong Enterprises HQ, showcasing a refined colour palette developed through collaborative client consultation to perfectly capture their corporate story.
“Strong and Growing Stronger”
14’X6′ Seamless Mural Installation for Strong Enterprises – 2025
The “Strong and Growing Stronger” mural stands as a premier example of professional storytelling art specifically engineered for a high-traffic corporate office environment. As a Kingston Artist, Portia “Po” Chapman utilized her signature colour blocking style and flat painting technique to amplify the graphic imagery within the new Strong Enterprises headquarters in Belleville, ON. This seamless, site-specific mural, inspired by the 1920s Bauhaus movement, was designed to complement the building’s International Style architecture and soaring two-story interior.
With a sophisticated understanding of modern art and architecture, Po employed a long, low landscape format to narrate the triumphant generational story of Strong Enterprises’ innovation, growth, and success. The resulting opaque mural features precisely crisp line-work and seamless colour transitions that come alive in the reflective glass railings and office walls, creating a stunning 360-degree illusion that wraps around the mezzanine. Through this meticulous process, Po delivered an exemplary execution that not only celebrates the company’s legacy, mission and future goals, it acts as an inspirational prompt for staff and clients alike.
Kingston Artist Portia “Po” Chapman at Strong Enterprises HQ with her mural: “Strong and Growing Stronger.” Po won the commission contest in September 2024. In January 2026, she returned to perform a professional polish and final execution touch-ups on the 14-foot long Storytelling Art mural.
About this Page – A Note from Po
This page is a photographic documentation of the mural’s journey from creation to installation. During the summer of 2024, Strong Enterprises ran a $31,000 Creative Placemakingart call for 3 pieces of artwork – one piece for the exterior of the newly built HQ building and two pieces for the interior. I won the competition for the mural contract (below, you find 2 of my proposal moc-ups along with before and after photos).
This was an exceptionally meaningful commission to me because, along with the business story, I was entrusted with the generational family story. The mural design incorporated four stages of growth (the trees), continuity of success (bubbles drifting upward), construction business (blocks), and the solid devotion to family (the foundational footing that extends across the base of the image). Strong operates by two powerful beliefs: 1/ “Family is our Foundation,” and 2/ being “Stronger Together.” To illustrate their unity and strength, I painted a sunlit sky and water in the background, bringing the entire mural together.
A commissioner of a couple of my pieces once commented this about my artwork: “Everything in Po’s murals has meaning and a deep story behind it!” As a visual storyteller, I employed the same strategies to the “Strong and Growing Stronger” mural – it is steeped in meaning. I am grateful, for Strong Enterprises and the Strong family’s collaborative, team working support while I created this magnificent piece of art that will now last for generations to come.
I look forward to creating a storytelling art project for you and/or your organization too. Email me to set your dream art piece into motion.
Precision in execution: Po completing the final brushwork on the Strong mural. This level of sharpness and opacity is achieved through meticulous free-hand brush painting, ensuring the storytelling art remains brilliantly vivid from any viewing distance.High-resolution detail of the “Strong and Growing Stronger” mural. Po returned after-hours to ensure a gallery-quality finish.A wide-angle view illustrating how the mural’s graphic Bauhaus-inspired style remains vivid from a distance and structurally precise up close.The completed mural brings life, joy, and a positive “inspirational vibe” to the Strong Enterprises HQ, standing in vibrant contrast to the snowy winter landscape outside.
Building the 14’X6′ Seamless Mural Board
Utilizing a subfloor-style construction method, Portia “Po” Chapman secures the staggered-seam MDO layers with a precision screw grid to ensure a perfectly stable, lifelong foundation for the artwork.Snapping the primary chalk line, the foundational step that ensures the mural’s geometric elements align perfectly with the “International Style” black horizontal lines of the Strong Enterprises building.Portia “Po” Chapman stands with the raw, 2-ply staggered-seam sign board, custom-engineered and mounted on a structural beam easel to support the immense scale of the project.Portia “Po” Chapman meticulously sands the filled mural face to ensure a perfectly smooth, glass-like substrate free of wood grain or seams.Kingston artist, Portia “Po” Chapman applies the first of three primer coats, a strategic process of painting and sanding that creates a subtle pebble texture for increased durability.
Drawing and Painting the Lines
Precision is at the heart of my professional execution. Here, I am utilizing a hand-rigged rope and pencil compass to draft the concentric arcs in the mural’s sky, ensuring every line is mathematically perfect and true to the proposed design.Portia “Po” Chapman meticulously translates her freehand pencil sketches into permanent black line-work using her innovative flat brush-painting technique.Portia “Po” Chapman paints the first coat of exterior black acrylic paint on the prepared, 2 layer MDO sign board.In her Kingston art studio, Portia “Po” Chapman, applies the first of 3 thin coats of black paint assuring that no edge has a paint ridge left by the brush. By eliminating the seam bump left by traditional brush painting techniques, Po creates a finished art-piece that allows the eye to more fully take in the image without a textural distraction.
Painting the Blocks of Colour
The first coat of colour is applied to the geometric “sunset rings,” showcasing the early stages of Portia “Po” Chapman’s multi-layered, hand-painting process.Thin, translucent layers are applied to build depth and colour saturation, a technique that requires immense patience to ensure a perfectly smooth final surface.After three meticulous coats with a small round brush, the mural’s colours begin to reach full vibrancy, maintaining sharp, flat transitions between every element. A few couple more coats of paint to go.Po utilizes small round brushes to ensure perfectly flat and crisp colour transitions.From a primed surface in October to a nearly finished mural in January, showcasing the timeline and specialized structural easel required for large-scale installations.
Comparison 3-Stage-Reveal: Without Mural vs Proposal vs With Mural
Without Mural: Documenting the view from the ground floor to ensure the future mural effectively draws visitors up toward the second-floor offices and boardroom.Mural Proposal: A ground-floor view of the proposed mural mockup, designed to mirror the first-floor windows and create a continuous “visual opening” that leads the eye upward.With Installed Mural: The completed mural brings life, joy, and a positive “inspirational vibe” to the Strong Enterprises HQ, standing in vibrant contrast to the snowy winter landscape outside.Without Mural: Preliminary site visit – Evaluating the second-floor industrial-modern space at Strong Enterprises HQ before the mural design phase.Mural Proposal: A digital proposal mockup showing the vibrant, nature-inspired mural design integrated into the industrial-modern architecture of the Strong Enterprises HQ.With Installed Mural: The completed, hand-painted mural at Strong Enterprises HQ, showcasing a refined colour palette developed through collaborative client consultation to perfectly capture their corporate story.
The Completed Mural Installation at Strong Enterprises
Demonstrating professional know-how, I hand-polish the surface of the Strong Enterprises mural. This process highlights the uniform precision of the concentric lines and curves, reflecting the high standards of my client’s construction business through a perfect artistic execution.Viewed from the first-floor mezzanine, this installation demonstrates my professional focus on site-specific storytelling art. I designed this mural to play with the reflections in the glass railings and windows, creating a seamless illusion where the artwork appears to continue indefinitely.This view of the opposite end of the second-floor mezzanine demonstrates the power of my signature colour blocking and advanced colour theory. Even from a distance, the hand-painted reflections remain vivid and distinct—a testament to my uniform, flat brush technique that eliminates noticeable strokes for a perfect, professional execution.A perspective view from the right, highlighting the 14-foot span of the seamless mural and its relationship with the industrial-modern mezzanine at the Strong Enterprises Headquarters.It was a true joy to tell the triumphant story of Strong Enterprises through this large-scale mural. Standing here with CEO Justin Strong and COO Natalie Strong, this portrait celebrates a professional collaboration rooted in the shared belief that we are: “Stronger Together!”A detailed view of the hand-brushed lettering and uniform paint texture, illustrating the seamless relationship between typography and architectural art.
I value a positive, collaborative process that respects the direction and stories of every business, organization and collector with whom I work. My clients trust me to provide the technical know-how and professional oversight required to move from an initial creative concept to a high-end execution – delivered on time and as envisioned.
I hope that you find my artwork inspirational, uplifting, welcoming and most of all, BEAUTIFUL!
I am often asked why I create attention grabbing, beautiful artworks, that generate discussion and the mutual sharing of stories. My response is:
“LIFE JUST FEELS BETTER WHEN WE SMILE!”
Portia “Po” Chapman, Kingston Artist
Specializing in: Community Placemaking, Storytelling Art Research, Project Execution
To Start Your Project, Reach Out via the Contact Information Below:
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