Emily Ferro Sortor

Emily Ferro Sortor approaches art as both a way of making and a way of paying attention. An artist, art historian, and writer, Sortor creates abstract collages that bring together observation, material experimentation, and a sustained interest in how people learn and make meaning. The process is less about imposing a fixed image than allowing a composition to form through application, removal, balance, and response.

Sortor grew up in a household where visual and historical thinking were part of daily life. An abstract photographer, her father introduced her early to the effects of framing, cropping, and compositional balance. Her mother, a historian, encouraged questions about the cultural and historical contexts surrounding artworks, buildings, and places. These influences continue to inform Sortor’s practice, which moves comfortably between making, studying, and writing about art.

With a Bachelor of Arts in French and a Master’s degree in Art History from the University of Delaware, Sortor has chosen not to separate studio practice from scholarship. “Understanding creative processes first-hand makes me a better art historian,” she explains, while historical context and cultural difference make her “a better and more aware artist.” Her interest in material culture, a methodology that closely examines objects as lenses onto history and culture, has also found a place in her artistic work.

Collage has been central to Sortor’s practice since middle school. Drawn to the medium’s ability to combine existing shapes and patterns, she values the experience of watching a composition emerge without being entirely “in the driver’s seat.” Her selected PJAS work extends this approach beyond conventional collage: it began as a painting, then accumulated newspaper that was later torn away before gouache and string were added. The finished surface records both building and erasure.

Paper remains a practical and meaningful foundation for the work. It is accessible, easy to store in a small apartment, and does not require a specialized studio, intensive cleanup, or long production waits. Sortor connects this low barrier to access with the way ADHD shapes her creative life. Rather than forcing a rigid schedule or a single medium, she works with periods of intense focus, moving among visual art, writing, reading, and other projects as ideas develop.

This flexibility is not a retreat from discipline, but a form of self-knowledge. Sortor has learned that insights often pass between creative outlets: writing can clarify an artistic question, while collage can sharpen an observational approach that carries into scholarship. Her recent use of earlier artworks within new collages makes that process visible. Old papers, images, and experiments become material records of prior labor, learning, and change.

Sortor is especially interested in post-1945 movements such as Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism, particularly their attention to the body’s role in making. Her own work considers how physical effort shapes a composition and how a surface can preserve the evidence of that effort. By incorporating previous work into new pieces, she gives material form to an idea that is often less visible: every artwork carries a history of practice behind it.

Collaboration is becoming an expanding part of that history. Sortor has begun incorporating elements of her wife’s earlier artwork into collages, with permission, bringing two artists’ accumulated labor and learning into one composition. Conversations with her father about their respective practices also continue to shape her thinking. For Sortor, scholarship itself is collaborative, built through shared knowledge, interpretation, and exchange. This ethos informs her interest in future work in curatorship, art writing, and teaching.

At the center of Sortor’s practice is a commitment to curiosity. She encourages artists, scholars, and other creators to observe how they naturally work, to notice both their strengths and their difficulties, and to remain open to productive challenge. In her own work, collage becomes a fitting vehicle for that inquiry: a place where separate fragments, histories, and questions can remain distinct while forming something new together.