Stephen was born in The Black Country, and trained at Norwich School of Art, 1973-6: BA (hons), Fine Art (Painting) and Stourbridge College of Art, 1972-3: Art Foundation.The Study of 17th century still-life painters such as Adriaen Coorte and Jaun Sanchez-Cotan have been a key influence on Stephen. He was intrigued that these artists eschewed the painterly gestures of the larger-scale compositions popular at the time. In their seemingly truthful naturalism, the Baroque sense of pictorial drama is artfully adapted to a more domestic scale and subject matter. But their paintings are not as straightforward
As they might at first seem. Their symbolism is equivocal and objects are not always as they would have appeared under incident light.
His work has been accepted by the Royal Academy, the Royal Society of Miniature Painters, and the Royal West of England Academy.
