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.
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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. […]
New Acquisitions from Open Studio
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McMaster Museum of Art M(M)A and Open Studio are pleased to announce that M(M)A has acquired three works by Carl Beam, Janet Cardiff, and Rita Letendre from Open Studio’s historic archive collection through its Print Sales program. These works now enter M(M)A’s Permanent Collection. About Open Studio: Open Studio was founded in 1970 and is […]
M(M)A Education Staff Nicole Knibb Receive President’s Awards for Outstanding Service in 2025
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Please join us in congratulating M(M)A’s Senior Educator (Academic and Professional Engagement) and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Family Medicine, Nicole Knibb, for receiving the President’s Awards for Outstanding Service in 2025. Nicole Knibb has made a profound and lasting contribution to interdisciplinary education, community engagement, and inclusive pedagogy at McMaster University. Through her leadership at the McMaster […]
