Artist Spotlight: Lieutenant-Colonel Andrew Currie

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“I’m a very impatient artist. I’m the guy with the hair dryer on watercolour and I’m drawing [something else] between coats.”

Lieutenant-Colonel (LCol) Andrew Currie is a military physician with the Canadian Armed Forces and has always moved through time with a determination to make progress – whether it be in making an impact with his military career or his nonstop love of creating artwork.

Currie initially decided not to pursue university but to train in Arizona to become a motorcycle mechanic. He always loved taking things apart and trying to diagnose and repair them. Eventually, however, he decided to pursue a career with more opportunities. 

In 1989, Currie enrolled in Pre-Med at the University of Regina. He joined the Canadian Armed Forces Medical Officer Training program at the University of Saskatchewan three years later. Not long after this, he had his first deployments to Bosnia and Kosovo with the 1st Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry.

“To travel to other places where healthcare is almost nonexistent, and to see what an impact it has to help some of these folks is startling. It’s extremely rewarding,” he said.

Currie’s introduction to deployments propelled him further in his career. In 2000, he completed a Master of Science in Occupational Health, and in 2002, he was posted into the Medical Intelligence Cell in Ottawa. In 2008, he began his second post-graduation with a fellowship in Sports Medicine. In 2011, he became the Base Surgeon at CFB Borden.

 

In 2012, Currie deployed again, this time to Afghanistan. He was the lead for the Residency Mentoring Program in Kabul. It was during his time in Afghanistan that other staff took note of his artistic side. Currie had begun drawing cartoons on a whiteboard to help give others a laugh during their stressful days. People loved it so much that they started taking pictures of his cartoons and chased after him if he fell behind in updating the board regularly. He also began doing caricatures of staff who were leaving as a going away gift.

After Afghanistan, he was posted to the Canadian Forces Health Services Detachment in Geilenkirchen, Germany. Then, it was back to Ottawa as the head of the Communicable Disease Control Program. He also spent three months in Beirut, Lebanon, as the Task Force Surgeon for the Government of Canada mission to bring Syrian refugees to Canada.

LCol Currie’s long list of accomplishments has constantly expanded over the years. He also holds qualifications in Basic Diving Medicine  and as a Flight Surgeon. His final posting is currently in Esquimalt as the Pacific Regional Surgeon.

When asked what the secret weapon is regarding how he finds the time to do his artwork and accomplish so much, his simple response was only four words: “I don’t watch TV”.

The Steel Spirit is a platform for artwork submissions by Military, First Responders and Hospital Practitioners. They are always looking for new and emerging artists, with and without experience, from every background and every age. 

For more information or if you would like to be involved, please visit www.thesteelspirit.ca