Born and brought up in Derry, Northern Ireland, John McCurdy graduated from Trinity in Dublin and started out as a community worker during the Belfast troubles and, after a spell of working abroad he finally settled in Scotland. Having always had a passionate interest in drawing, as a child John was fascinated by the work of adult cartoonists like Giles, Searle and Thelwell and spent hours copying the style. Later, on his travels, he tried to capture everyday street and domestic scenes in ink, wash and charcoal.

From the late 70s, John attended evening classes and summer schools at the Edinburgh College of Art and began working on a number of themes, sometimes in collaboration with two photographer friends, becoming particularly interested in aspects of rural and urban dereliction and the stark landscapes of the Scottish east coast. 

For the past four years John’s worked in the WASP studios in Edinburgh under the direction of Paul Keir, an abstract artist and former ECA tutor, looking at ways of developing a more abstract and expressive approach to his work, an approach he’s taken further in this, his current project in Meikle Logie wood near Dunkeld.