As if you just swung through the theatre doors and interrupted them mid-surgery, Ken Currie’s Three Oncologists stare blankly at you. Ghostly and exhausted, their limp and bloody hands morbidly lay before them.
The blurb reveals three professors within the Department of Surgery and Molecular Oncology at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee. Although it describes them as being in a state of ‘anxiety and horror’, it doesn’t begin to uncover what lies behind their eyes.
Rather than making his subjects sit for this painting, Currie created life masks of the surgeons. The artist also observed them for a lengthy period while they worked in the operating theatre. Currie witnessed the dedication and relentlessness which is characterised in their portrait. Yet, the dissociative glares echo the aspects of the work the artist can never be privy to.
The painting stands there, terrifyingly huge, the surgeons engulfed in a dark oncology ward, their bloodied hands searching in the dark. We can’t see the individual they are battling for, so instead, the unseen patient symbolises the thousands on their operating table. With our overworked and underfunded NHS, it would be believable if the painting were made a few months ago. Yet it was created in 2002. The piece is timeless; it gives us a glimpse of what the surgeons and doctors must endure. The challenges they tackle, the hours they give to their work, and the horrors they must see. Past and present.
Ken Currie’s thought-provoking, eerie piece at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery is worth everyone’s time. It should be respected and appreciated like those who continue working within the NHS.
“Ken Currie” by Martin Beek is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.