Works by two leading contemporary Scottish artists inspired by the life and work of Robert Burns are to be on display at the National Portrait Gallery this summer.

Today sees the opening of The Slaves Lament, a video, music and sculpture exhibition by Graham Fagen, which is on show at the gallery, in Queen Street, Edinburgh.

Later this year, from late July to October, the same gallery will be showing a new work by Turner Prize winning artist Douglas Gordon called Black Burns.

The work, as yet under wraps, will be inspired by the full length marble statue of Burns which stands in the gallery's Great Hall, created by John Flaxman.

The work will "render Flaxman's totemic sculpture of Scotland's national hero at once more human, more vulnerable and more exposed."

The Slaves Lament is a four screen video which sets the lyrics of Burn's verse of the same name to music by the Scottish composer Sally Beamish, played by members of the Scottish Ensemble and sung by the reggae artist Ghetto Priest.

It was part of the official Scotland + Venice show at the Venice Biennale two years ago.

The video and a sculpture, cast in bronze, of a tree made from rope, will be shown, free of charge until October 29.

The installation refers to a key moment in the poet's life, when he came close to leaving Scotland to take up the position of bookkeeper on a Jamaican sugar plantation.

In 1786, Burns had decided to leave Scotland to work at an estate near Port Antonio - however the success of his poems made him delay his decision and ultimately not travel.