A war artist and former Glasgow bouncer has drawn the Stations of the Cross

When he was four, Peter Howson's grandmother gave him a set of paints. Like other boys, he painted elaborate battle-scenes, but he also produced endless depiction's of the crucifixion and the Second Coming.

His parents were moderately religious, but when Howson's sister died, they lost their faith, and he followed suit.

Throughout his career as a painter, he has been influenced by religious art, producing bold narrative studies in human violence. But now he has rediscovered his faith, and his art has moved into explicitly religious territory. His latest commission is a Stations of the Cross for a private chapel.

Howson was born in London; but his family moved to Scotland when he was four. As a child, his artistic talent was apparent, and so was his sensitivity to the darker side of human nature - the two have always been inseparable.

When he began to look at artistic tradition, he was naturally drawn to visual and thematic violence: the darkness of Goya, the Dionysian force of Picasso. These influences combined with personal experience of violence, when he was bullied at school for his English accent, which he quickly learned to drop.

In 1975, he entered the Glasgow School of Art. He also trained as a boxer and bodybuilder, and worked as a bouncer. His art became a commentary on these forms of life: tramps, wide-boys, yobs. His work reflected his acquaintance with local gang-leaders, and it constituted a form of catharsis: "I used to be frightened of bullies," he says, "but then I realised it's like manna from heaven for an artist, to see those faces."

In the 1980s, he was feted by the art-world; the Tate and the National Portrait Gallery were competing to buy his work. He started attracting celebrity fans, including David Bowie, Madonna, and Sylvester Stallone.

Howson was riding the first wave of contemporary 'Brit-art', and it went straight to his head, he now admits. It's the classic tale, really: I had success too young, and I blew it. I'll always regret going to a party at Windsor Castle with some of the most interesting people in the country there, and being so drunk and stoned I can't remember a thing that happened. I'm probably quite boring now, but at least I have the pleasure of remembering all the people I meet.

Howson's portraits and narrative paintings belong in the expressionist tradition, conjuring up a world of the imagination, very often a nightmare world. But, like other expressionists, he creates a new, idiosyncratic beauty from the most disturbing and grotesque subject-matter.

As well as looking back at art history, Howson looks around him, and incorporates aspects of the contemporary visual idiom: his use of line and colour reflects cartoons, graffiti, cinema. The end result is canvases charged with drama: the use of light and dark is bold, almost apocalyptic.

His work had always reflected the violent side of humanity; so he must have seemed a natural choice to be sent to Bosnia as an official war artist in 1993, traveling with the British component of the UN forces. He produced a range of controversial paintings including Croatian and Muslim, depicting a rape.

After this series, he suffered a long artist's block. Next to what he had seen in Bosnia, art seemed useless. "Bosnia was pretty close to hell" he recounts. "I'd always been depicting scenes of violence, but suddenly I was seeing the real thing. I'm not sure I was really equipped to deal with the experience. It was good for my career, but it wasn't very good for me."

A long struggle with alcoholism led to a spell in a clinic two years ago, and a huge personal breakthrough for Howson. "My faith had always been there in the background, but I'd never really faced up to it; I'd had a feeling of 'I'm not worthy'."; He has a healthy Scots reticence about the experience: he's still trying to find a language to express it, and has started reading a lot of theology (Aquinas at present).

Nevertheless, he is clear that the experience has changed his approach to his work. "My talent doesn't come from me: it's a gift. I think a lot of modern art draws on darker forces. That doesn't make it any less beautiful, but there is a real difference."

He has just completed a Stations of the Cross for a private chapel. "I think they're my best work for a long time. But it's been really grueling, so emotionally involving."

The figures contain an element of caricature - which puts him in the tradition of Bruegel and others. "I was particularly influenced by the Flemish tradition: Grunewald and Bruegel, and Durer and Bosch: I wanted some of that medieval, Gothic feel. But I've also been looking at Giotto quite a lot"

A figurative painter has to deal with the triumph of the conceptual, symbolised by that grand postmodern temple Tate Modern. Howson confronts the issue head-on."To the press, what I do is unfashionable. The Brit-art culture, spawned in England by New Labour, pushed the kind of work done by Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin, and painters like me were old news. But I think that's changing. I think that, partly due to the 11 September tragedy, having a light switched on and off or an unmade bed in a gallery seems meaningless and shallow. Conceptual art is on the way out: people want to see real art again."

Howson may well be right, that the conceptual boom is wearing thin. Whether the art-world is ready for the return of full-blown religious narrative painting is another matter.

'Stations of the Cross', by Peter Howson, is at the Flowers East gallery, 82 Kingsland Road, London E2, until 11 May. Phone 020 7920 7777