Burrell Archive is a Maryland studio making wearable fine art of the African diaspora — portraits and archival imagery rendered as original artwork and printed to order on garments and fine-art paper.
Press contact: brandon@burrellfirm.com · Fort Washington, Maryland, USA. We reply within one business day.
The short version
Across the Middle Passage and the centuries after it, the people of the African diaspora were meant to disappear. They refused. That refusal is the whole of this archive.
Founded by Brandon Burrell, Burrell Archive renders figures of the global Black experience — Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Fannie Lou Hamer, Ida B. Wells, Bessie Coleman, W.E.B. Du Bois, Olaudah Equiano, Robert Smalls, Toussaint Louverture and Yaa Asantewaa among them — in a signature dissolution style: the figure emerging from and dissolving back into a nebula of ink and light.
The brand mark is Aya, the fern of the Akan Adinkra tradition of Ghana. It grows where little else can, and stands for endurance and defiance.
History, Worn in Light.
Three things worth knowing
Every figure begins with a documented likeness. Each portrait is reworked from a verified public-domain photograph or painting. Where no verified likeness of a person exists, we do not invent one — which is why some names you might expect are not in the archive.
The scope is the whole diaspora, not one country. African American figures sit alongside Haitian, Ghanaian and British ones.
The adinkra tradition is credited, not borrowed. Aya is drawn as an original interpretation in the adinkra tradition of the Akan people of Ghana, always credited, never copied from a traditional stamp.
Product range
Tees — Comfort Colors 1717 garment-dyed heavyweight cotton, $42. Dresses — all-over print t-shirt, midi and bodycon, $58 to $82. Wall art — canvas, poster and framed prints, $32 to $130. Bags — all-over print totes and backpacks, $34 to $68.
Everything is made to order and shipped from the facility nearest the customer. US delivery typically 5 to 12 days.
Images
High-resolution product and artwork images are available for editorial use. Email brandon@burrellfirm.com with the piece you are writing and we will send a link the same day. Please credit Burrell Archive.
Boilerplate
Burrell Archive is a Maryland studio making wearable fine art of the African diaspora. Portraits of historical figures — each reworked from a verified public-domain photograph or painting — are printed to order on premium garments and fine-art paper. Its mark is Aya, the fern of the Akan Adinkra tradition of Ghana, a symbol of endurance and defiance. Founded by Brandon Burrell. burrellarchive.com