#james labold

James Labold was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania outside of Philadelphia, where he spent childhood summers visiting museums with his grandmother, historical sites, New Jersey boardwalks, and a theme park based on candy bars. These were all critical to his development as an artist. In 2015 he received his MFA in Glass at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, famous for David Letterman, Garfield, and Bob Ross. Labold currently lives and works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

My work draws on contemporary and historical imagery to create imagined narratives reflecting on the bridges between past and present culture. I’m inspired by the high culture of classical sculpture as much as the low culture of dollar store holiday decorations. Both are important symbolic representations of the modern world. I often utilize mass produced kitsch found objects which are replicated, distorted, and reconfigured with elements directly modeled by myself. Some pieces are overloaded with iconography, just as the constant stream of news and images scrolling across our devices merge into an incoherent mass of content.