Matthew Burrows

A couple of new paintings from the “Had I-had” series (working title). I’ve been working on eight of these over the past few months, and these two in particular have pushed my patience. I wanted them to hold onto their awkwardness - idiosyncratic, imperfect, embodied. Like a wound that’s healed but hasn’t disappeared: compelling, but undeniably real. I’m leaving them alone for a couple of weeks now. They’ll either hold, or they won’t. #painting #abstractpainting #studio

Cloud - series 2026 Acrylic on linen 100 x 80 cm The word cloud derives from the Old English clud, meaning rock or clod of earth - mud. I like the quiet symmetry in that: the sky named after the ground. It also feels close to painting, which is essentially coloured mud. I tend to think of painting as something that exists between states. The vaporous drift of clouds and the granular tactility of earth together form a useful metaphor for painting, and perhaps for human experience more broadly. #cloudseries #matthewburrowsstudio #painting #nature

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

STUDIO NOTES Each morning I write. Usually just a page or two in a notebook, with a pencil — which, for some reason, feels important. Over the last few days I’ve been beginning with questions. Not to narrow the day, but to open it. To bring a little more attention to how I move through the studio and the world. I’ll often return to them during tea breaks, or in those moments of uncertainty when painting. Today the questions were: What matters today? How do I want to be? Simple enough on the surface, but they shift something in me. They move my attention toward intention and relationship. Not the rigid kind, this isn’t a production-line economy, but a living relationship with the work as it unfolds. They make me ask: What kind of relationship am I having with paint today? How lightly can I hold my ideas, so they become a ground to move from rather than a limit to push against? Painting can feel a bit like entering the sea, learning to move with the push and pull of the waves rather than trying to command them. Today, the work asked me to be patient and bold. Not restless. Not desperate. Just present enough to stay curious about what the moment might know before I do. Image: studio wall, works in progress. #studionotes #painting #makingart #abstractart

Today I was asked, “What is your purpose and vocation?” I had to sit with it for a moment. Actually, a few moments. There’s the simple answer: painter, mentor, community builder. But underneath that sits something larger, questions less about career paths and more about what kind of human being I’m trying to become in relation to others and the world. Perhaps my purpose is simply to create forms of attention and connection through painting, running, writing, and the sharing of experience. In that sense, painting is not the answer to vocation. It’s the place where I practice listening for it. Painting, for me, is a little like breathing. I can’t go long without it before something in me begins to close down. And when I enter a gallery, I often feel the same rush of oxygenated energy that I do when moving through landscape on a long run. Both wake me up. Both return me to myself. Maybe that’s what vocation really is, not a fixed identity or achievement, but an active relationship to what keeps enlivening us, inwardly and outwardly, over time. So why not try and ask yourself: What is my purpose and vocation? You may be surprised by what comes out. #studionotes #painting #thoughtsonart

I’ll often look through sketchbooks before I paint each day. It’s a ritual that reminds me of the scope of possibility. I used to make drawings for a painting first, but I’ve found that this usually just cements an idea in place rather than opening it up into a movement of relationships. I’ll start work by telling myself not to “do the usual”. This is always specific to each painting, and the sketchbook drawings and notes can provide a jolt into the unexpected, a small push into the leap that creates life in a painting. #studionotes #matthewburrowsstudio #sketchbooks

A beautiful evening on Friday listening to @julesannis_ speak about her current exhibition @gallery19a . Delicate yet deeply grounded, these paintings open a quiet space of reverie, a life sensed through and within the landscape. The spaces they evoke feel both ambiguous and wholly present, holding together fragility, tenderness, and a profound sense of deep time. Go and see the show if you can. You won’t be disappointed. 19a Hollingdean Terrace, Brighton, BN1 7HB Open till Monday 10am-5pm #julesannis #gallery19a #turpseastsussex

What the Heart Loves, the Eyes See, and the Hands Make I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the relationship between love, attention, and making. Not love in a sentimental sense, but as a force that shapes perception itself. What we desire changes what we notice. And what we notice changes what we make. This new essay is a reflection on art, mystery, embodiment, and why creativity cannot be reduced to theory, explanation, or content. Painting continually reminds me that intelligence is not just intellectual. It is emotional, material, spiritual, intuitive. Sometimes the deepest work happens precisely when control begins to loosen. The more I paint, the more I realise that art is less about certainty than attention, staying open long enough for something unexpected to emerge. As usual keep your comments coming, they always inspire me to dig a little deeper into this strange activity of painting. Read at: matthewburrowsstudio.substack.com Link in bio. #painting #artwriting #contemporaryart #studiolife #creativepractice paintingprocess

Last week @julesannis_ and I took the Turps East Sussex mentors to visit Howard Hodgkin’s studio in London. Hodgkin’s paintings have long felt like a beautiful anomaly within British art —delicate yet powerful, dense yet light, slow yet immediate. There’s something strange and moving about entering the temple of an artist’s studio. You feel the vulnerability of a space built around possibility. A gallery can so easily assert status, but in the studio the work is still becoming itself, slowly wriggling out of its chrysalis into a world that may not yet know how to receive it. Thank you to Anthony, Andy and Matthew for their generosity, insights and warm welcome.  @turpseastsussex @turpsmargate @howardhodgkin

Studio Notes - Sometimes I go quiet. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say, I retreat. That can mean physically stepping away, finding a place where I won’t be disturbed. But more often it’s subtler than that, a withdrawal from action, a letting-be. A space where something new can begin to take root. In these periods, I struggle to form images or words. I’m less certain of where I’m going, or even what I want. I used to resist that feeling and try to push through it. Now I recognise it differently. It’s a kind of chrysalis. Something is shifting, re-forming. Not yet visible, not yet articulate, but necessary. Knowing when to emerge is another matter. It asks for patience, and a sensitivity to timing. When to move forward again, when to re-enter the work. This time, what’s come back with me is quieter. Less the pull of excitement or ambition, more a subtle sense of direction. Not a rush towards a goal, but a gentler movement, in the direction the work, and life, are already leaning. #studionotes #matthewburrowsstudio

The Joy of Celebration I’ve been thinking about how rare it is to truly celebrate the success of others. Especially in a world that so often pushes us toward comparison, competition, or quiet envy. Recently I’ve seen a number of exhibitions by friends I’ve known for over 30 years. What strikes me isn’t just their success, but the depth of the work, how it has grown slowly, resisted shortcuts, and found its own voice over time. “Their work has deepened… it has refused easy answers and the whims of fashion.” That kind of practice takes courage. And patience. And a belief in something that isn’t always visible or rewarded. Celebrating that isn’t just generosity, it’s a way of affirming what we value. Because when we recognise depth, commitment, and care in others, we make space for it in ourselves too. New essay: The Joy of Celebration matthewburrowsstudio.substack.com
Link in bio #painting #artistlife #artwriting #contemporaryart

🎨 TURPS MARGATE lead mentor Matthew Burrows invited the current cohort to visit his Rye studio today for a talk about his practice and a materials demonstration. 🙏🏼Thank you @matthewburrowsstudio for such an inspiring and educational day! @turpsbanana @turps_mass_showreel #mentor #turps #artiststudio #painter #matthewburrowsstudio photo credits: @gabrielamax & @aliceherrickstudio