He passed the City and Guilds examinations at an unusually young age, and was able to open his own tailoring shop.
[5] Burrowes began teaching Working Peoples' Free Art Class, which influenced artists such as Dr Denis Williams.
[8] In 1949 he received a British Council scholarship which let him attend the Brighton College of Art, where he specialised in block printing.
[10] Writing about Burrowes in the 1966 Guyana Independence Issue of New World, Locke describes how Burrowes was constantly engaged in "technical exploration", including making his own paints from unlikely ingredients and conducting experiments "with balata, buckram, tailor's canvas, rice bags, bitumen, concrete and ... clay mixed with molasses."
Denis Williams called him "the Barbadian who fathered the plastic arts in Guyana in terms of a European ancestry.
[13] In 1987, Williams described Burrowes as "a genius" who "opened the Guyanese eyes to art, in its aesthetic sense".