Born in North Shields, Currie moved with his family to Glasgow as an infant. He attended Glasgow School of Art, with film as his preferred medium, since he initially intended to pursue a career as a film maker. However, in the mid-1980s he abandoned celluloid for canvas and returned to painting. Inspired by the work of Leger, Rivera and the German Neue Sachlichkeit group, much of his work in the late '80s was the politically motivated art of social realism, seen most notably a series of murals for The People's Palace in Glasgow depicting scenes from Scottish labour history. His subsequent work continued to focus on the human condition, particularly relating to those on the fringes of society and his spectral but luminous paintings are renowned for the complex, sometimes terrifying and apocalyptic, world they depict.

Currie is recognised as one of the most provocative and challenging of contemporary artists and his paintings are displayed in public and museum collections world-wide.