AS AN artist, you never know the minute inspiration will strike. The way Paul Kennedy tells it, the subject matter for his new exhibition, A Night at the Dogs, fell into his lap.

"Everything usually happens to me by accident," says the Glasgow-based painter, whose exhibition based around the tremulous grace of greyhounds opened yesterday at the Leiper Gallery in Glasgow city centre. "But sometimes the artists' subject matter fairy comes along and hits you on the head."

Much beloved of Renaissance artists and writers, Shakespeare refers to greyhounds several times in his canon, most famously in Henry V 's speech just before the Battle of Harfleur, when he likens his troops to coursing greyhounds: "I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, straining upon the start. The game's afoot."

The way Kennedy tells it, it was a sober night at a stag do which heightened his own senses to the fragile beauty of these dogs.

He explains: "My old pal Ally held his stag night at Shawfield Stadium in the south side of Glasgow in November 2013 and it was one of these nights I remember very clearly; mainly because I wasn't drinking and I got a lot of stick from the other guys for it.

"I'd never been to to a dog-racing track before and was curious. When the others – several of whom were old childhood friends – were in the bar, I took myself off and started snapping away with my phone. As an artist, I was fascinated by the little scenes I came across in this place, which had an air of faded glory about it.

"An old man in a McEwan's lager t-shirt nursed a pint of Tennents lager on his own, four men in white coats walked dogs in their colour-coded coats around the track before a race, a woman with long-blonde hair, a mini skirt and massive high heels stepped outside for a quiet cigarette…

"There was something about that night. The cold November night air, the fluorescent light, the people and the colours."

Ever the trained observer, Kennedy went home that night with a stash of hundreds of photographs which he quietly nursed in his mind's eye for a couple of years.

Since graduating from Edinburgh College of Art in 2004, Kennedy has held his own in the often fickle fine art world, building up a reputation as a gifted painter whose work is widely collected. In 2009, he was a finalist in the Aspect Prize for Painting which brought his work to a wider audience. The painting which led to him being shortlisted, Springburn Hopes, was a beautifully nuanced portrait of a young red-haired boy (his little cousin) in Springburn Park in Glasgow. Kennedy's talent as a portrait painter of great promise was laid bare in this single work.

By his own admission, since then, Kennedy has jumped about thematically in his work. But there are certain subjects he returns to time and time again – people and their surroundings, Glasgow street scenes, boats, birds and dogs. This latest body of work is neatly tied together by a single narrative thread and this makes all the difference.

"Although I had been thinking abut my night at the dogs for a while, and painting bits and pieces around it, I didn't start focusing on it properly until earlier this year," Kennedy explains.

"As an artist I am reinventing constantly but at the start of this year I started focusing on painting scenes from Ally's stag night; including one depicting the four dog walkers I saw walking the dogs before the race, one of five dogs racing and also a painting of Ally being hoisted aloft by his seven pals – including me – with the Shawfield Greyhounds sign in the background."

There was something about these paintings which struck a chord in everyone who saw them. Stephen Cullis, chairman of Westpoint Homes, was so taken he bought a version of the group portrait depicting the "stags" holding up the groom-to-be from The Leiper Gallery, which is owned by Kennedy's uncle, Ewan Kennedy.

"Stephen said I should do an an entire show based around the dogs and said Westpoint Homes would sponsor it if I did," Kennedy recalls. "So we set a date. There's nothing like having a deadline, so I basically shut myself away for six weeks this summer with just my sick friend's cat for company and painted this entire body of work.

"I put shutters down on my social life and worked from end of July until September. I emerged from my flat a couple of weeks ago with big bushy beard!"

This self-imposed exile has borne a rich crop of paintings which show Paul Kennedy maturing as an artist in all respects. Much more painterly and pared down than previous work, the graceful figure of the humble greyhound suits his palette, be it on a dark night walking past the neon fizz of the famous Glasgow Barrowlands, or in the noble form of a retiring hound and his shadow looking backwards at the end of an all-too-brief career as a sprinter.

The race is not always to the swift but catching it in an all-too brief moment has led Kennedy to pin down a melancholy beauty.

Paul Kennedy: A Night at the Dogs, Leiper Gallery, West George Street, Glasgow until October 30.

www.leiperfineart.com