BiographySteinkamp, a professor in the Department of Design Media Arts at UCLA, was born in 1958 in Denver, CO. One of five children, she moved to Los Angeles, CA to attend the Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, where she earned her BFA (1989); MFA (1991) and honoary doctorate. There she studied under Mike Kelley (the subject of her abstract tree portrait shown at TCM in 2012) and later represented the US at the 11th International Cairo Biennale and 2011 Second Biennial in New Orleans. Her work is in many collections worldwide, including in Los Angeles at the Staples Center, Hammer Museum, and Museum of Contemporary Art, as well as at the Phoenix Art Museum, Denver Art Museum, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Albright-Knox Gallery and the Towada Center, Japan. In addition to her fine art practice, Steinkamp has worked for Disney and produced animation for the band, U2.
Since 2003, Steinkamp has almost exclusively used nature's power and beauty as the subject of her work.