In the lead up to our 2025 Graduate Shows, we’re celebrating the creativity and talent of our graduating students by sharing their stories and showcasing their incredible work. We spoke with Fine Art Painting BA(Hons) student Ross Borton about the course, his influences and advice to his younger self.

Please tell us a bit about your work and your influences  

Since joining the University, my practice has moved in a far more expressive and abstract direction. Living with undiagnosed Autism and ADHD until my mid-fifties it has become an outlet to communicate my emotions, an energetic dialogue between control and chaos, order and disorder. Rapid, gestural marks and sweeping brush strokes represent a freedom of expression and reflect a mind that rarely rests.

Influences have come from many diverse sources, the flower paintings of my late grandmother, the development of abstraction through the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and the eclectic sub-cultures of the 1970’s and 1980’s.

Past and present gestural abstract painters like Joan Mitchell, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Cy Twombly, Franz Kline, Oscar Murillo, Albert Oehlen and Daisy Parris have all provided inspiration. 

Image: The Passenger, 160 x 240cm, oil paint, solvent based house paint, acrylic paint and pencil on canvas

What made you choose your course?  

I had completed a City & Guilds in oil painting some years earlier and was looking for a course that specialised in painting. Living in East Sussex, coming to Brighton, also meant I did not need to relocate.  

Can you tell us about your favourite part of your studies and how it helped the development of you and your practice.  

All of the tutors, including those visiting or standing in, have been very helpful and encouraging, pointing me towards artists I had not always heard of or seen before, enhancing my knowledge and helping with the development of my practice. I have also been inspired by all the brilliant students around me.  

Can you tell us about any staff who particularly inspired you?  

The technician James Kearns. He has been an integral part of the course, introducing me to methods and materials that have had a very positive impact on my practice and development. He has also been incredibly patient when I have asked non-stop questions about mediums or pushed boundaries, like wanting to work on a 2.7 x 4 metre canvas.  

Image: Transmission, 143 x 143cm, oil paint, solvent based house paint, acrylic paint and pencil on canvas

Can you tell us your plans after graduation?  

My long-term plan is to set up affordable studios in the Brighton area for emerging artists, but in the short-term I will find a space for me to continue painting and exhibiting. I have considered going on to do an MA, but in all likelihood, I will put that on hold for a year or two while I continue to develop my practice. 

Finally, if you could give your 17 year old self any advice about going to university what would it be?  

Be yourself, express yourself and be strong enough to follow your instincts. 

Find out more about our 2025 Summer Shows where large parts of the university turn into a huge free exhibition space.