Overview

Ken Currie: Paintings and Writings provides a unique insight into the thought-world of Ken Currie’s challenging and enigmatic art. For over four decades Currie has created some of the most confrontational and intriguing paintings in the contemporary art world. Throughout this period, he has been acclaimed for the artistry of his technique and the cryptic quality of his imagery. This book explores his writings, both public and private, to open-out the discourse on his visceral creativity. For the first time Currie has made available his studio journals. These intimate writings, coupled with personal letters and published statements, are juxtaposed to his esteemed artworks. The result is a fascinating dialogue that explores the motives and aspirations of his inscrutable paintings. Within the field of ‘artist’s writings’ this book offers an inspirational presentation. Compiled and edited by the art historian Tom Normand, it penetrates the creative imagination of a truly visionary artist. Fundamentally, it reveals the intense passions of a primordial human heart.

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9781804252277

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Ken Currie: Paintings and Writing intimately relates the artist's worldview to his art through each phase of its evolution. ... Currie's writings range from commentary on the creation of individual paintings to his personal responses to political upheaval, war and humanitarian disaster around the world. ... a stimulating dialogue between the visual and the verbal on every page. Currie's art is beautifully reproduced in full colour, charting his work from early paintings commemorating the massacre of the Calton Weavers to his artistic response to war; he addresses corruption, both physical and moral, with the honesty and courage that is also exemplified in his medical portraits. ART PLUGGED This book meshes the journals and thoughts of one of the country’s foremost artists with examples of their work. Together they help the reader build an appreciation of what he wants to say, and how/why his art has developed as it has. A fascinating book I’d recommend to all art lovers. RB, Scottish Field It is getting hard for artists to shock anyone... Ken Currie deserves credit for breaking through this moribund mood with grotesque new paintings that genuinely nauseate. JONATHAN JONES, The Guardian The subtle and complex artist. DUNCAN MACMILLAN, The Scotsman

Author Information

KEN CURRIE studied at the Glasgow School of Art from 1978 to 1983 and rose to attention in the 1980s. He is renowned for his unsettling portrayal of the human figure. The artist’s rich, luminous paintings depict mysterious rites, rituals, and quasi-medical practices, offering a meditation on violence in its many guises. Ken Currie has exhibited widely internationally. Currie’s work is held in many major public collections, including Tate, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, and New York Public Library. DR TOM NORMAND is an art historian specialising in British, and especially Scottish art, photography and culture. He is the author of several books including Ken Currie: Details of a Journey and Scottish Photography: a History. Tom is an Honorary member of the Royal Scottish Academy of Art and an Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Art History, University of St Andrews.

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