Duncan Currie graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 1985. He specialises in mixed media paintings of the landscape and of fishing boats. He also paints in watercolour and produces wild life illustrations in pen and ink. His main inspirations are the mountain scenery of Skye and beyond, as well as the fishing boats seen in the harbours of the West Coast. He is based in Skye and his work can be viewed at his Sandbank Studio.
Duncan Currie’s work can also be seen at Images Gallery in the north of Skye and Strathcarron Pottery in Wester Ross.
Listen to the ATLAS Arts Café interview with Duncan on Cuillin FM.
Artist’s Background
From an early age Duncan Currie came with his parents to holiday each year on the Isle of Skye. When they eventually settled on the Island he completed his secondary education here. Duncan grew to love the spectacular mountain and maritime scenery of Skye and the north west of Scotland. As a keen painter he expressed his enthusiasm for the natural environment of the islands: ‘landscape’ forming the dominant theme of his degree show at Edinburgh College of Art in 1985.
At about the same time he became interested in fishing boats at Cockenzie, a village just along the coast from Edinburgh. Fishing boats are a recurrent theme in his work today, their vibrant colours and lively compositions contrasting with the more subtle hues and fleeting light effects of his landscape paintings. Duncan has a strong feeling that he is portraying a passing era. Every time he returns to fishing villages such as Ullapool or Mallaig there are fewer boats in the harbour, particularly the older wooden-built crafts which he prefers to paint.
Nowadays his inspiration comes from hill-walking and long fly-fishing trips (an obsession which rivals his painting), which enables him to find unfamiliar views of the well-known Skye hills and lochs. There is a unique light about the landscape of the Island and Duncan feels this is caused by reflection and refraction of light from sea water on hills which rise steeply out of the sea. This, together with spectacular rock formations found in the Cuillins and the mountains and hills in the north of the Island, form the basis of his work.
Click here to view Exhibitions that Duncan has been in >