Stephen Goodfellow; A short biography

2011 - Oral History interview by Wayne State University Libraries project, available as a .pdf document or an MP3 sound file.

Born in Southampton, England on August 31st 1953, Goodfellow has lived in Nigeria, England, Denmark and Mexico before he settled in Detroit, U.S.A.
Most of his early education took place in Danish schools. Consequently, he was steeped in Danish language, its culture and history.

In 1967, when Stephen was fourteen, he and his family moved to Monterrey, Mexico. Here he enjoyed a freedom hitherto not experienced; it was in Mexico that Goodfellow seriously started to sketch. At the age of fifteen (1969,) he applied for and was accepted to East Ham Technical College (Foundation Course,) in London, England. With a full grant and awarded for exceptional merit, he obtained a Diploma for Art and Design (BFA) at Hull Regional College of Art in the North-East of England in 1974.

In 1975 Goodfellow came to Wayne State University in Detroit to pursue his Post graduate degree. He graduated from Wayne State University in 1977 an M.F.A. having concentrated on painting and printmaking. During his studies at Wayne State University, Stephen discovered that it was possible to transfer his primary color printing technique to conventional surfaces. This technique is called 'Primary Micropointillism'.

Micropointillism uses only the primary colors (yellow, red and blue,) which are applied to the surface in small spatters of color. By using different intensities of these three colors one can produce an almost limitless palate of colors. Several examples of these works have been acquired by the Detroit Institute of Art and further work was recently in the "Interventions" Exhibition at the DIA in 1995. This institution has purchased three of Goodfellow's paintings Even before the advent of the World Wide Web, Stephen demonstrated that the principles of Micropointillism are perfectly suited for the electronic medium; that the manipulation of primary colors make for a seamless transition between the reflective and the radiative image.

By 1999, Goodfellow had launched into Macropointillism a technique similar to Micropointillism, but executed with sizable dabs of primary color on large canvases.

"Can Gravity be Induced" was written in 1979, and placed online via CompuServe in 1987. An overview video of the concept can be watched here.

Goodfellow moved from Highland Park, Michigan where he spent 33 years, to Ann Arbor in 2008 where he resided until 2011, at which time he moved to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico and is presently working on fresco buon, digital art and writing.

Resume also available