Ken Currie: In the Artist’s own Words
July 19, 2012
In this video from the National Galleries of Scotland, Scottish artist Ken Currie talks about his work and the process behind the painting of his first portrait commission, Three Oncologists.
It’s fascinating to hear him speak about his work, how he went about capturing the likeness of his subjects (surprising!), and his impressions as he observed the doctors at work. (reminiscent of views expressed at a recent artist/scientist panel discussion during the Perceptions of Promise exhibition.)
Ken Currie is one of Scotland’s most influential contemporary artists. His work is both haunting and harrowing:
“I want the viewer to be simultaneously attracted and repulsed by my work in the same glance. My aim is to provoke anxiety and discomfort in the act of looking… to hold their gaze then mercilessly terrorise their compliancy and unsettle them.”
(Quoted in July 1/2012 Australian Art Review)
The McMaster Museum of Art is fortunate to have 28 works by Ken Currie in its collection. These include a 9 x 11 foot oil on canvas painting, Wailing Women, 1990, which is a companion to The Troubled City painting shown in the video. (They are two parts of a trilogy.)
The collection also includes 26 aquatints from Currie’s The Age of Uncertainty portfolio (1991) and, finally, a work that is on view now until August 4 (Don’t miss it!) in The Last Things Before the Last exhibition—a Head Study in oil, charcoal and beeswax, gifted by Neil and Blanche Carragher in 2004.
Fall 2026 Exhibitions at the McMaster Museum of Art
September 4, 2026
Connected Histories, Research, and Archives—Interview with Nnamdi Nnake
September 1, 2026
What stories can the telegraph tell? More than a century after telegraph lines began to stretch across Nigeria, Connected Histories: The Telegraph in Nigeria invites visitors to take a fresh look at a technology that helped shape modern communications, colonial governance, labour, and everyday life. Drawing on the doctoral research of McMaster University PhD candidate Nnamdi Nnake, the exhibition brings together rare artifacts, archival […]
M(M)A Education Staff Teresa Gregorio Shortlisted in City of Hamilton’s Arts Champion Awards
June 23, 2026
Please join us in congratulating M(M)A’s Educator for Campus & Community Engagement, Teresa Gregorio, for being shortlisted in the Arts Champion Awards in City of Hamilton’s Arts Award 2026. The Arts Champion Awards may be conferred annually to living individuals who are outstanding supporters of the arts in Hamilton as volunteers, advocates, or board members. […]
