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Matthew Burrows

@matthewburrowsstudio

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Artist | Founder @artistsupportpledge
Thirty years tracing the threads between body, nature & the sacred.
Sharing work & studio life 🇵🇸

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What is drawing for?

Drawing is thinking, not the language-based, analytical thinking so common in our academies now, but a thinking that draws directly on experience, through judgement, memory, imagination and metaphor.

It means grappling with forms in space through line, shape and marks on a flat surface. It looks at the world in the round, not framed or isolated, but open to possibility. All our senses are involved: touch, sound and smell are part of how we comprehend the world. Drawing is not about mere images.

Copying can be useful in learning the mechanics of structure and image, but (and this is important) it is not a replacement for experience. Copying an artwork from a photograph is not the same as drawing from an artwork in real life. In the flesh, the eye and body deconstruct the act of looking: they read the pace of colour, the surface, the character of materials. A photograph of a person is not the same as meeting someone in person.

So what, and how, do I draw? I draw from life, without an agenda. I just respond to experience and allow my body and mind to wonder at what I see. I draw from memory, from what I have seen. I draw from imagination, forms and shapes of my inner world. Out of all of these I create metaphors: images and forms that stand in for something else.

If there is one thing I’d recommend any artist do, if they want breadth and depth in their work, it’s this: draw more. Stop explaining and start drawing. That’s where the real thinking happens.

Let’s start a conversation and elevate drawing to where it should be, at the centre of our visual learning.

Share your thoughts below. What is drawing for you?

#drawing #studionotes #turpsbanana by @matthewburrowsstudio

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9 months ago

Over the last couple of weeks, I finished a group of paintings unexpectedly. It didn’t happen through an imposition of will, but through a quiet acceptance of their need to be complete. The paintings tell me when they’re ready, they offer their own wisdom, not the other way around.

I often sense a tension in painting between the absolute and the relative, between the specificity of the moment and the timeless presence that permeates all things.

Perhaps it’s this quality we recognise when a work feels complete: a balance where opposites resolve into something whole. Anthropos, the ancient word for the complete human, speaks to this union, the divided becoming one.

For me, painting isn’t a form of visual entertainment for the overly educated, but a catalyst, a means of loosening the ego, of opening into something larger, more creative, and more generous.

#painting #wholeness #human #studionotes by @matthewburrowsstudio

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a year ago

New paintings from the Had I-Had series.

Those of you who follow my work will know my fascination with the vagaries of language, how it can suddenly reveal something unexpected.

Had I-Had, in Aramaic, translates as “one to another.” I’m drawn to the ambiguity at the root of so much language, its capacity for analogy, for symbolic slippage, for meanings that refuse to settle. I’m deeply sceptical of using language to pin things down; I’m more interested in forms of thinking that open out rather than close off.

“One to another” suggests that everything exists in relation. But what is that relation? That’s the question that animates these works. For me, it feels inherently paradoxical.

It’s about holding this and that together, not as separate, opposing terms, but as coexisting realities. Not either/or, but and/also.

#painting #vigogallery #matthewburrowsstudio by @matthewburrowsstudio

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6 months ago

My latest essay was commissioned for Sarah Pickstone’s exhibition Disobedient Palette at Clifford Chance, London.

It was a real pleasure to spend time thinking and writing about Sarah’s paintings. There’s something wonderfully unruly about the way her work moves between observation, imagination and the physical pleasure of paint.

She’s one of the few painters I can think of who paints like a symphony: rich, all encompassing, complex and yet held with such lightness.

Read my essay for free at: www.matthewburrowsstudio.substack.com
Link in bio

Sarah Pickstone Disobedient Palette
9 June 2026 - 8 June 2027 Clifford Chance 10 Upper Bank Street, London

@sarahpickstone #disobedientpalette by @matthewburrowsstudio

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14 hours ago

Mountains soften the heart and make steel of your sinews.

I meet some of the most remarkable people in the mountains. This week, on my way up Scafell Pike, I had the pleasure of meeting and summiting with one of them @bobbie_and_the_boogeyman_hikes

Robert is climbing 60 peaks in 60 days. And not just any peaks: the highest mountains in Scotland, Wales and England (20 each) Scafell Pike was number 30.

He’s attempting to set a world record while raising money for cancer research, but it was the story behind the challenge that stayed with me. A story of loss and grief, of finding a way through, and of discovering that what once seemed impossible might just be possible after all.

There’s something about mountains that brings these stories out of people. Perhaps because, up there, there’s not much room for pretence.

Follow Robert’s journey @bobbie_and_the_boogeyman_hikes and, if you can, make a donation to his just giving page - link in his bio.

“Nothing is impossible.”

— Robert Paul Davies

#60peaks60days by @matthewburrowsstudio

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2 days ago

What is it about mountains that stretches my spirit thin enough to see through?

I’m in the Lake District seeing family and running the fells and mountains that have been such a pivotal part of my life.

In my work as an artist, the spaces between things have been a consistent obsession: the ecotones and borders between land and sea, field and forest, sky and earth. Places where one thing meets another, and neither remains entirely itself.

But mountains hold a particular place in my imagination.

There is something about their scale, exposure and indifference that meets my inner world with a robust directness. They shock, disarm and revive me. Up there, things seem both more substantial and less fixed. The boundary between inner and outer becomes strangely thin.

Perhaps that’s what keeps drawing me back. Not to escape the world, but to become more permeable to it.

Videos from yesterday’s run up Scafell Pike and across to Esk Hause, Cumbria.

#mountainrunning #ecosphia #ecowisdom by @matthewburrowsstudio

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2 days ago

Excited to be a part of the conversation. Join us and find out more.

What happens after an exhibition or project ends?

How do artists build sustainable art practices, find genuinely supportive relationships and continue to make work they believe in?

Join Dr Susan Jones and special invited artists for a conversation inspired by her independent research study Artists’ lives: ecologies for resilience. Together, they’ll explore artists’ approaches to and experiences of sustaining artistic practices including how communities and infrastructures enable artists to survive and thrive and why direct support to artists is essential to a healthy society. Bringing together artists, producers and cultural leaders, this discussion explores what it really takes for artists to live flourishing lives.

Persistent Practices discussion
Saturday 3 October
2.30-3.30pm

2 Centre Square, Middlesbrough TS1 2BF by @matthewburrowsstudio

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3 days ago

📣 TURPS MARGATE 2026/27 starts in a few weeks with artists and mentors coming together in the stunning surroundings at Turner in Margate.
Turps is fortunate to have this beautiful space to gather for talks and crits throughout the year with lead mentor Matthew Burrows MBE.
We are delighted to welcome 10 new artists, who will join 11 of the artists following on for a second year of painting, mentoring and stimulating, supportive conversation.

For more information about TURPS MARGATE and all TURPS courses, please follow the link in our bio to: www.turpsbanana.com

@turpsbanana @turps_mass_showreel @matthewburrowsstudio @turnercontemporary
#turpsmargate #turps #turnercontemporary #mentor #painter

photo credit: Benjamin Beke taken in Turner Contemporary by @matthewburrowsstudio

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3 days ago

How big is your studio?

Artists seem strangely obsessed by this question. Square metres, ceiling heights, storage, how many paintings we can have on the go at once.

Recently I’ve been wondering if I’ve misunderstood the question.

What if my studio doesn’t end at the door?

Over the last few weeks I’ve been preparing for a new kind of journey: running and walking through the landscape, carrying enough to camp, along with a sketchbook and pencils. No real destination. Moving, drawing, eating, sleeping, then moving again.

I’m interested in what happens when the studio expands out into the world.

“Perhaps the studio is not simply a place where I make things, but somewhere I learn how to be in the world.”

Running and drawing have been my means of communion with nature for many years. Both leave lines behind. One across paper, the other across land. Both ask me to pay attention.

And increasingly I wonder whether drawing is really about making marks at all.

“I am beginning to think that drawing is less about making a mark on the world and more about discovering the marks we make together.”

My latest essay, Drawing a Line, is about this expanding studio, running, drawing, contemplation and what might happen when we allow our creative practice to wander beyond its familiar boundaries.

Perhaps that’s what I’m really doing: drawing lines with feet and hands and learning to listen to their dance in the world.

where does your studio end?

Drawing a Line is now on my Substack.
matthewburrowsstudio.substack.com
Link in bio. by @matthewburrowsstudio

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9 days ago

Last chance to see Materiality Matters 2!
What a fantastic exhibition! It was a real pleasure to be one of the selectors for the @noplaceart Materiality Matters 2 Open Call, and even more wonderful to see so much extraordinary work come together at the Handbag Factory.
Congratulations to all 80 selected artists! The exhibition is a celebration of artistic diversity, experimentation and the incredible community that continues to grow around No Place Art.
A huge thank you and congratulations to Rowan Siddon whose tireless work, generosity and commitment to supporting artists have made all of this possible. It’s inspiring to see what can happen when artists come together and support one another.
If you haven’t seen the exhibition yet, don’t miss it!
Open 11:00–17:00 until Saturday.
📍 The Handbag Factory
3 Loughborough Street, Vauxhall, SE11 5RB
Congratulations to all the selected artists! 👏

Go see it. by @matthewburrowsstudio

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9 days ago

I know I’m biased — I was one of the selectors and judges — but this really is an exceptional show!

@tbwdrawingprize Delighted to see the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2026 listed by @thenudgelondon as one of the best exhibitions to see in London right now. And in very good company!
92 shortlisted drawings, each offering a different way of seeing, thinking and experiencing the world. It was a privilege to be part of the selection process, and wonderful to see such an extraordinary range of work brought together.
Pictured here is giving only good, only good when giving (2025) by Elena Grossi, winner of the Student Award.
The exhibition is open daily, 11am–6pm, until Sunday 4 October. Admission is free.
Go see it!
@tbwdrawingprize @trinitybuoywharf @drawingprojectsuk @parkerharrisco @anitataylor_ @nose_is_cold
#TBWDP26 #TrinityBuoyWharfDrawingPrize #DrawingExhibition #Drawing #LondonExhibition by @matthewburrowsstudio

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12 days ago

Studio Notes — What are we willing to let go of in order to survive?

It’s a question that comes up regularly in conversations with my artist friends and colleagues. Life and art can make us prey to the ravenous beasts of validation, status and success. What parts of ourselves are we willing to sacrifice to keep going, and what might we need to leave behind?

I’ve been pondering this over the last few weeks since seeing Rembrandts self portraits in Vienna when, on this morning’s dog walk, I came across the severed tail of a slow worm on the fence behind my house.

Often mistaken for snakes, slow worms are actually legless lizards. They have a rather remarkable way of escaping predators: they can jettison their tails, sometimes losing a considerable part of their bodies in the process.

It’s likely that this one survived. Its tail will eventually regenerate, although it will probably be shorter and less perfectly formed than before.

There’s a pathos in this that I find hard to avoid.

Perhaps it’s the same pathos we encounter in the work of a mature artist. Someone who has lived long enough to know that survival sometimes requires us to relinquish parts of ourselves. Our ambitions, certainties, identities, or the things we once believed were essential to who we are.

We don’t necessarily return to what we were. We grow differently, carrying the evidence of what has been lost and what has been gained.

Perhaps there is a particular kind of beauty in this. Not the beauty of perfection, but of regeneration. A beauty that carries its wounds, its history and its capacity to begin again.

#studionotes by @matthewburrowsstudio

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13 days ago