Artist, illustrator & designer based in California.
James Lambert was born and raised in the Midwest. Lambert grew up watching science fiction and reading comic books, both of which inspired him to draw and create from an early age. Music, car culture and sports were also a huge influence. Self-taught as a teenager, he started drawing portraits, designing t-shirts and creating murals while in high school. He attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the American Academy of Art in the mid-80s. Chicago proved to be an ideal landscape for inspiration, life experience and fueling his drive to create. He achieved commercial success as an undergraduate by selling a handful of his earliest works to a group of patrons and private collectors. He continued to produce work well into the late 80s, which reflected the depth and conflict of that period in Chicago. Lambert received a Bachelor of Fine Arts, an Associates of Art degree, and was the recipient of The Ryerson Fellowship in his final year of study.
After a short break, he moved west, eventually setting up shop in Santa Barbara, California. Within a few years, Lambert applied that same creative drive to raising a family, exploring new tools and working outside his comfort zone. As a career artist, Lambert has taken on many roles in the creative community, ranging from illustrator, sign painter, art handler, product designer to creative director. His work represents an eclectic blend of movement, color and design. A few of his favorite influences include mid-century fashion, Modernism, architecture, 80’s street art and industrial design. Conflict and tension continue to be a common thread in his work today – i.e., chaos vs. order, surface vs. substance, man vs. machine and good vs. evil. Although he has favored figurative and objective narratives, his new work explores structural dynamism, the limitless possibilities of abstraction and the unexplored space between the two.
The adventure continues.
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