He uses techniques common to many artists, but his blend of free painting over textured relief in which the texture itself effectively becomes the drawing and underpainting, along with other aspects of his method, gives rise to completely original paintings. Not avantgarde but distinctly modern in his interpretation of the subject of mountainous landscape, his work employs oriental and geometrical perspective and colour that is both expressionistic and symbolic. His use of geometrical relief forms to express general configurations and elements of time is used cohesively with areas of blank, often textured, white and strong colour to examine the nature of his chosen subjects in extended time sequences. Burden attempts to convey the all encompassing nature of mountainous landscape by the simple device of four linked paintings representing the four seasons or by depicting several different times during a day in a single painting.