Gregory Steele was born and raised in a small western Illinois town twelve miles from the Mississippi river. Since 1969, he has lived in Davenport, Iowa because of the river. Both the river and the surrounding landscape have been a big influence on his art. At the age of 18, Steele became a professional artist as a cartoonist selling works to newspapers in northern Illinois and later went on to become a freelance illustrator. In 1992, he began dropping commercial clients to devote more time to his passion for creating paintings. Steele uses both color and detail to create a depth that pulls one into the painting. His main objective is to create a four-dimensional image on a two-dimensional plane, giving the illusion that one can walk into the painting to see what is on the other side. Steele’s paintings often stir a memory of a place or an event in the life of the viewer.