Steven Campbell was born in Glasgow. He spent seven years working in the steel-works as a fitter and maintenance engineer before going to Glasgow School of Art. After graduating he went on a Fulbright Scholarship to New York. His early work was in the field of installation and performance art, and elements of performance continued through into his painting. These works, and the one in the British Council Collection, were painted quickly as the artist improvised and changed ideas rapidly. The paintings were theatrical, and characters frequently absurd, as they posed and gestured often apparently oblivious of what was happening around them.

Glossary

  • Installation

    An artwork comprised of many and various elements of miscellaneous materials (see mixed media), light and sound, which is conceived for and occupies an entire space, gallery or site. The viewer can often enter or walk around the installation. Installations may only exist as long as they are installed, but can be re-created in different sites. Installation art emerged in the 1960s out of Environmental Art (works of art which are three-dimensional environments), but it was not until the 1970s that the term came into common use and not until the late 1980s that artists started to specialise in this kind of work, creating a genre of ‘Installation Art’. The term can also be applied to the arrangement of selected art works in an exhibition.

  • Painting

    Work of art made with paint on a surface. Often the surface, also called a support, is a tightly stretched piece of canvas, paper or a wooden panel. Painting involves a wide range of techniques and materials, along with the artist's intellectual concerns effecting the content of a work.

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