Stephen Conroy, born 1964

Conroy is one of the most prominent names to emerge from the group of Scottish figurative painters who graduated in the mid-1980s and are collectively known as the New Glasgow Boys. He first came to public attention when he was included in the group exhibition The Vigorous Imagination at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in 1987. Highly acclaimed by the press of the day, he has gone on to have a very successful career. In addition to solo exhibitions in London, Glasgow, Manchester and New York, he has contributed to several group shows, including New British Painting, which toured five American venues from 1988 to 1990. Conroy has also painted a number of portraits, including that of Sir Jonathan Miller, commissioned in 1999 by the National Portrait Gallery in London.
Initially Conroy's work reflected his view of a world he could know only through the images of others, particularly Degas, Seurat and Stanley Spencer. His early figurative works belong to a strong tradition of Scottish artists, in particular James Cowie, who was himself a student at Glasgow School of Art from 1912 to 1914.
A recurring theme in Conroy's early work is populated interiors that appear to be from the late-Victorian or early-Edwardian age. His characters inhabit an airless environment in which Conroy manipulates a variety of light sources to create a theatrical effect. This claustrophobic atmosphere contains obscure narrative clues that are rarely enough to allow the viewer to work out exactly what is going on, but which nevertheless stimulate the imagination.