Currie was born in England to Scottish parents and grew up in
Barrhead, near the city of Glasgow. In the late 1980s he was gaining attention as part of the New Glasgow Boys, a group of young Scottish figurative painters, including among others the artists
Peter Howson,
Adrian Wiszniewski and
Steven Campbell. Throughout the 1980s, Currie's work depicted heroic workers and revolutionary union representatives as part of a bigger "socialist
Clydeside". This is seen as a response to the policies of then Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher. In 1987 Currie finished an eight-piece series of large-scale paintings of the
massacre of the Calton weavers of 1787, which was the violent suppression of a strike by the
British Army, resulting in " Scotland's first working-class martyrs". The paintings which were commissioned for the 200th anniversary of the massacre are now hanging on the ceiling of the
People's Palace in Glasgow. Starting with the early 1990s Currie began to be emotionally affected by the political and humanitarian crises in Eastern Europe, such as the
Yugoslav Wars. Following on from this meeting, Currie was invited to Professor Black's workplace at the
University of Dundee, where she gave him a tour of the dissection room. The artist was so moved by what he witnessed and encountered, he later asked Professor Black to sit for a portrait. Currie was elected to the
Royal Scottish Academy in 2024. ==Themes and Influences==