Steve Browning is an artist, most recognised for his cityscape and landscape pieces. During his colourful career he has worked for the Royal Air Force, as well as some of the most prestigious advertising agencies in the industry before following his lifelong passion of art.
What made you decide to become an artist?
Necessity, really. If i didn’t do it at that moment I never would. I had been made redundant from a job in advertising and art was something that I always wanted to pursue. So I gave myself a 5 year plan; if all worked out I would stick with it and luckily a couple of years into it, it did work out for me.
Has your career choice changed since you were in school?
In school it is very hard to know what you want to do, not everybody does. I think most people go into something they are good at, or something that they feel they have to do.
The school I went do didn’t exactly set the bar high. About 90% of the other guys in my class were joining the army. So at 16, I decided I would join the Royal Air Force. I mostly worked on the avionic electronics but I also painted murals on the squadrons. At 28, I grew tired of it. I didn’t find it rewarding anymore.
College was something I always wanted to do. I debated whether I should study electronics as I had been working in that department for so many years, or do I take a risk and go to Art College. I was turned down for the electronics course, so I enrolled in Leicester college and studied graphic design. It didn’t excite me but I got hooked on advertising as an industry, the buzz, the ideas, now that excited me. So I went hell for leather trying to find placement in the best agencies in London. Eventually I got a place in Gold Greenlees Trott,then was offered a full-time job as an art director. After that I moved to Dublin and worked in DDFH&B, then was made redundant.
I questioned whether to look for another job in an advertising agency, or to change careers completely. I wanted to see if I could make a living as an artist. After a few months of pursuing art I was given the opportunity to hold an exhibition at the Royal Hibernian Academy. I thought ‘I must be okay at this’. It gave me the confidence I needed to continue. I learned to embrace the change.
Do you have any advice for someone who might be considering a career like yours?
Be yourself, take advice onboard but don’t follow others. I remember listening to Chris Evans from the big breakfast show one morning, just after he got his break on primetime radio. (Turns out we lived around the corner from each other in Hampstead Heath…well him in a a big house and me in a bedsit). He said ‘ If you want to get on in this world, you have to be yourself’ and that resonated with me. Don’t be afraid of change and don’t trust people who are.
To develop you need to stay true to yourself. Even now, I find myself thinking that I am too conventional, that I need to develop. But I need to stay true to me and if I do that, then development happens naturally over time.
Not Your Career Guidance Counsellor 