Adrian Burrell

Photo: Dondre Stuetley

American, b. 1990

Lives and works in Oakland, CA

Adrian Burrell’s practice includes photography, film, installation, and experimental media. His work examines the intersections of race, class, and intergenerational dynamics, inviting moments where collective storytelling creates space for remembrance.

Burrell’s work has been the subject of the recent solo exhibitions Venus Blues at the Minnesota Street Project Foundation (2023), and Sugarcane and Lightning pt 3 at the San José ICA, CA (2022), each investigating his own family history — archival, speculative, and fictional — as a means of understanding Black life, history, resistance, and liberation in America.

A third-generation Oakland artist and US Marine Corps veteran, Burrell received his BFA in Film from the San Francisco Art Institute, CA and MFA from Stanford University’s Department of Art & Art History, where he was also a visiting artist with Stanford’s Institute for Diversity in Arts (2022). Burrell has been awarded the Black Freedom Fellowship, Salvador, Brazil (2023); Black Rock Senegal Residency, Dakar, Senegal (2022); SFFILM FilmHouse Residency, San Francisco, CA (2022); YBCA 100 Creative Cohort Fellowship, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA (2021); and Juror’s Choice Award, SF Camerawork, San Francisco, CA (2019). His works are included in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA, and Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA. His first monograph, Sugarcane and Lightning, was published by Minor Matters in 2023.

Artist CV (PDF)
Works
- Adrian Burrell
  Can to Can't, 2022
  Archival Pigment Print
  40 x 26 inches
  
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- Adrian Burrell
  God Don’t Like Ugly, 2020
  Archival Pigment Print
  60 x 40 inches
  
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- Adrian Burrell
  Initiation, 2022
  Archival Pigment Print
  21 x 36 inches
  
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  %3Cdiv%20class%3D%22artist%22%3EAdrian%20Burrell%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22title_and_year%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_and_year_title%22%3EInitiation%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_and_year_year%22%3E2022%3C/span%3E%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22medium%22%3EArchival%20Pigment%20Print%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22dimensions%22%3E21%20x%2036%20inches%3C/div%3E
- Adrian Burrell
  Door of No Return, 2016
  Archival Pigment Print
  20 x 36 inches
  
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News
Press
Meaghan Mitchell, "‘Black Spaces’ at the Oakland Museum Meditates on Displacement and Reclamation, KQED, July 18, 2025

Max Blue, "'Black Gold' balances curation, creative insurgency in vital moment," San Francisco Examiner, June 2, 2025

Jaelynn Dale Walls, "Black Gold: A Glistening Portal to The Past," SF/Arts, June/July 2025

Taylor Dafoe, "Critical Geography | FotoFest Biennial 2024, Houston," photograph, May 1, 2024

Madison Ford, "FotoFest Biennial 2024: Critical Geography," The Brooklyn Rail, April Issue, 2024

Michael McCarthy, “Rising Bay Area Artist Adrian L. Burrell Is A Master Storyteller,” San Francisco Magazine, December 5, 2023

Tony Bravo, “Adrian L. Burrell’s ‘Venus Blues’ bridges Senegal to Oakland through family journey,” San Francisco Chronicle, November 22, 2023

Max Blue, “Oakland artist reckons with the trans-Atlantic slave trade in new Dogpatch show,” San Francisco Examiner, November 6, 2023

Mark Taylor, “Singing the "Venus Blues" with Oakland Artist Adrian L. Burrell, “ SF/Arts, September/October, 2023

Mark Van Proyen, “Adrian L. Burrell’s ‘Venus Blues’ @ MSP Foundation,” SquareCylinder.com, October 30, 2023

Tony Bravo, “Oakland artist to create new multimedia installation in S.F.’s Dogpatch,” San Francisco Chronicle, July 20, 2023

Seph Rodney, “Adrian Burrell Explores the Difficulty—and the Promise—of Escaping Black American History,” Art in America, January 26, 2023

Marke B., “Pop-Up Magazine springs back onstage, with one of Oakland’s best young artists,” 48hills, May 19, 2022

Maya Chesley, "Shaking the Foundations of the American Dream," The New Yorker, February 2, 2022

Luke Williams, “At SFMOMA, Adrian L. Burrell’s Collective Self-Portraits Defy Gravity,” KQED, March 31, 2021