Thorburn’s work considers the cultural and scientific significance of images and illustrations that have been made of the human anatomy; he looks at connection these have with religious iconography, medical understanding and the way it has been employed in contemporary art to lay bare the reality of the human physical condition, thus undermining the societal norms and presumptions that inform social behaviour. His works therefore operate as touchstones that permit an enquiry into a series of questions affecting the way we live.  

At first glance, his works are reminiscent of detailed analytical sketches to be found in medical and natural history text books; but his license as an artist allows a deeper and more penetrating enquiry. He enters a space inhabited in art history by figures such as Hieronymus Bosch and Albrecht Durer who commit disfigurements on the human form to deliver prescient messages about the nature of the human condition. His work echoes that of Gilbert and George both in its flat, graphic format but also its unremitting and brutally honest look at the human body and its processes.

Furthermore, his work reflects a contemporary zeitgeist to enquire into the very minutiae of the way human being are put together, be it through scientific study in the Human Genome project or the Body Worlds exhibit. These references seem to offer clues as to where Thorburn is going with his own work; he has remarked that the ‘surgeon has become the role model for my work, the contrast between science and art being fundamental.’