One of the outstanding Scottish painters of his generation, Ken Currie is known for his intensely powerful and thought provoking, provocative work.  While he is a figurative painter, Currie is not – with two notable exceptions – a painter of portraits.  The exceptions are a portrait of Professor Peter Higgs, commissioned by the University of Edinburgh and Three Oncologists, commissioned by the Scottish National Portrait Gallery and one of the most highly regarded paintings in the collection.  Currie has said: ‘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 unsettle them’.