Ken Currie is a Scottish artist and a graduate of Glasgow School of Art. Ken grew up in industrial Glasgow. This has had a significant influence on his early works. In the 1980s Currie produced a series of works that romanticised Red Clydeside depicting heroic Dockworkers, Shop-stewards and urban areas along the River Clyde. These works were also in response to then British Prime MinisterMargaret Thatcher's policies that he believed were the greatest threat to culture of labour.
Works
Currie's paintings show a profound interest in the body and the "terror" of mortality. His works are primarily concerned with how the human body is affected by illness, ageing and physical injury. Closely related to these themes, his work also deals with social and political issues and philosophical questions. Although many of the images dealing with metaphysical questions do not feature figures, a human presence is nevertheless suggested. He was labeled as one of the "New Glasgow Boys" along with Peter Howson, Adrian Wiszniewski and Steven Campbell who studied together at the Glasgow School of Art. His Glasgow History Mural was commissioned on the 200th anniversary of the Calton weavers massacre in 1787 and is displayed on the ceiling of the People's Palace. He has occasionally worked as a portraitist. Three Oncologists is in the collection of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery; it depicts Professor Robert J Steele, Professor Sir Alfred Cuschieri and Professor Sir David P Lane, three doctors from Ninewells Hospital, Dundee, in a "haunting", "spectral" painting that reflects the popular fear of cancer. Currie was commissioned by the University of Edinburgh to paint a portrait of Peter Higgs, the theoretical physicist, which was unveiled in 2009. He is a "reluctant portraitist", and this was only his second portrait. He said, referring to the Higgs boson, "I am very interested in Peter's work. I don't for one second claim to grasp the theory, but I do understand the sublime, and there is a sublime quality to it all, a beauty, an awesome quality. In some respects, the subject is quite terrifying."
