Steele was born in Cardiff, attending the Cardiff School of Art and Newport School of Art across 1948-1950. In the early 50’s and with an initial focus on figurative and Abstract Expressionist art, Steele won a scholarship to study in France. While in Paris in 1959, Steele discovered the artwork of Victor Vasarely, Max Bill and Josef Albers after a visit to the ‘Antagonismes’ exhibition held at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. Following this introduction to geometric abstractionist work, Steele returned to the UK and devoted his practice to purely abstract art, a theme which continued for the rest of his career. For eight years, Steele created works solely with black and white elements, experimenting with the interaction of these two elements based upon mathematical relationships, often in balanced and grid-like forms.

Due to the illusion-like and visually jarring elements of these works, Steele was associated with ‘Op art’ movement, though moved away from this in the 1970s. Alongside a small group of artists including Peter Lowe, Michael Kidner and Peter Sedgley, Steele founded the ‘Systems Group’: a radical movement which created modern, minimalist and conceptual artwork, linked to the wider environment’s structured systems and processes. During this period, Steele created a series of works under the title ‘Syntagma’. Translating as ‘arrangement’ from Greek, it is applied primarily in linguistics, exploring how words and sentences combine. Steele however, turns this into a visual language, utilising structured black and white line or geometric patterns. Several 'Syntagma' works by Steele. are held in national art institutions.