Ken Currie was born in North Shields and grew up in Glasgow as his family moved there when he was four months old. As a student, he spent a year studying Social Sciences at Paisley College before going to Glasgow School of Art. In the mid 1980s he worked in film, producing Glasgow in 1984 and The Clyde Film, as part of a community based project. Currie is a politically committed artist whose concern with social issues is reflected in his paintings and drawings of workers, of the shipyards, of events in Scottish Labour history, and of life in contemporary Glasgow.