Steve’s landscape paintings are abstract depictions of narrative views of the world, exploring the natural, cultural and social histories found lying about or buried in the landscape.

He often adopts a partially aerial view of the landscape, a point of view that can show the logic of the land, the patterns of water, earth and vegetation that make a place. He often includes horizons to give a sense of distance and destiny.

Steve’s images and ideas have their genesis in the natural world. Observing and recording the lay of the land, the lines and marks of place, as drawings and color sketches in watercolor, gauche, pastels and inks. Photos capture the textures, colors and line of places and features while the stories and sense of place are recorded in words. These complex snap shots are recorded in travel diaries, raw, live documents of place.

Back in the studio, Steve writes the subject on the walls in words, with photos and drawings scattered about to bring the "sense of place" to the easel. Studies for paintings are created mostly in pastel on paper where design and color can be explored and ideas tried out.

Mostly working in acrylic paints on board or canvas, Steve builds up grounds of color and texture to lay down the land. The features of the landscape then populate this ground with paint, scoured line, drawn line, sometimes text and texture to create the place.

Buried in the layers may be natural formations, images of cultural marks on the land and stories of human interaction.