For our July Spin evening, we will be back at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery to discuss the exhibition of new paintings by Ken Currie. We will be joined by Glasgow-based artist Sharon Thomas who, amongst other projects, has recently exhibited Herstory, a series of portraits of notable women in public life in Scotland.
Ken Currie is one of the outstanding figurative painters of his generation renowned in the context of the Portrait Gallery for his haunting, luminous painting Three Oncologists (2002) and his self-portrait Unfamiliar Reflection (2006). Widely admired for his intensely powerful and provocative work, the portraiture of the Old Masters, such as Velázquez, Goya and David has always fascinated Currie, and his own work often references similar traditions and concerns. In this exhibition of new paintings, on public view for the first time, Currie meditates upon the idea of the portrait, its origins and purposes, and its continued significance in the modern world.
