Born in Glasgow in 1956, Steven Johnston studied art when he was young, but he did not initially make a career out of this talent. Johnston was an apprentice electrician before he was offered a place to study painting at Carlisle College, in 1973. During his second year there, he decided to focus on black-and-white photography instead. Upon completing college, he moved to London, where he worked as a freelance photographer for numerous popular magazines for nearly two decades. In 1991, Johnston realized that his passion for photography was fading and he began painting seriously again. He explains, “It was then that something clicked and I have not looked back since. Painting is my life.”

Johnston’s painting style revolves around the interesting and beautiful shapes the human body makes. He begins a painting by taking a photograph and transforming its subjects into anonymous figures on minimalist backgrounds. This lends the painting an ethereal but often familiar quality. “The aim,” Johnston says, “is to portray an essence and emotion rather than a well-defined and precise person or location.” The backgrounds of these pieces are always painted with acrylics, while the figures are rendered with oil paints to make them stand out. The combination is striking yet beautiful and it is no wonder that Johnston’s paintings are collected around the world.