Adrian L. Burrell is a storyteller who uses photography, film, and site-specific installation to examine issues of race, class, and intergenerational dynamics. His work focuses on notions of kinship, diasporic narratives, and the gaps between place and belonging.
Burrell’s artistic practice draws deeply on his family history, often combining interviews, video, and archival materials to trace their multigenerational journey from Louisiana to Oakland, California. Originally from Oakland, Burrell has lived and worked on four continents, his multidisciplinary projects have been featured at SXSW (Texas), the Pingyao International Photography Festival (China), Photoville (New York), California Magazine’s, “Pop-Up Magazine” programme (multiple locations). Burrell was also named as one of Yerba Buena Creative Arts 2021-22 “Creative Cohort” fellows in San Francisco. His short film, “The Game God(S)” was awarded Best Documentary Short at the BlackStar Film Festival in 2022. His work has also been acquired for the permanent collection at San Francisco Museum Of Modern Art.
Burrell is a US Marine Corps veteran, he graduated with a BFA in film from the San Francisco Art Institute, and MFA from Stanford University’s Department of Art & Art History, where he also lectured. In 2022, he was a visiting artist with Stanford’s Institute for Diversity in the Arts, and a San Francisco FILM Resident. Burrell is currently an artist in residence at Black Rock in Senegal in West Africa.
