Campbell's painting style is figurative, with a hard, linear quality to the paint application. The colour scheme is bold and full of vibrant hues. His work has been characterised as concentrating on the surreal ridiculousness of the English gentleman.

Steven Campbell, 1953-2007

Glasgow-born Campbell was a fitter in a steelworks for seven years before enrolling at Glasgow School of Art. In 1983 a Fullbright Scholarship took him to New York where he lived for five years. He returned to Glasgow, and lived and worked in Stirlingshire until his death in 2007.
Campbell is an exuberant figure painter with an intense creative imagination. He is an improviser, working quickly and allowing the composition to develop, inventing and altering elements as he goes along. Later works are full of a complex esoteric symbolism. They are populated by imaginary characters in imaginary and somewhat nonsensical situations, their arcane titles having only a passing relevance to the painting.