Edgar H. Sorrells-Adewale is a multimedia artist who has worked in sculpture, collage, and drawing, employing found materials, including handmade papers. Born in Philadelphia in 1936, he received his MFA from Pennsylvania State University in 1971 and has taught art for over thirty years at various universities, including Cheyney State University, Howard University, and Santa Fe Community College. Sorrells-Adewale has shown work across multiple states and in the U.S. Embassy in the Republic of Niger. In 1981 Bannister Gallery held a show of his work titled The Path: A Retrospective View of the Ancestralandscape of E. H. Sorrells-Adewale in which this piece was featured.
His work often deals with themes of spirituality and African religious practices, drawing from indigenous African iconography such as the vibrantly colored shapes and patterns featured in this collage. The figure-like forms in this collage bear some resemblance to the “Sankofa” symbol originated by the Akan people of Ghana. One version of the Sankofa symbol is a bird with its body facing to the left and its head facing to the right, as if looking back. This symbol relates to learning from the past and has become representative to many of Africana studies. Perhaps this relates to the title of the work—“Phoenix”—a bird in Greek mythology that is continually reborn every time it dies. Although at first glance this work appears to be abstract pattern, it contains possible symbolism of African heritage and the resilience of culture.
