Bantam,  1994

Acrylic on board

24'' x 16"

“For all their 'in your face' directness his large colourful paintings are the complex creations of a thoughtfull, sensitive individual working with noble artistic traditions. Hampson was born and grew up in the raw north country industrial town of Oldham and his work has been concerned at least in subject matter with the everyday preoccupations of a 'Northen Lad': football, girls and beer.

It has also carried within this framework weighty socio-cultural comment.

Through the savage accretion of both booty and beast, Hampson like his great hero Hogarth identifies himself as a man of the people. He revels in the enigmatic nature of his powerful grotesqueries and leaves the viewer to decide whether they are to be interpreted as comic or sinister.

All that is certain is that they are real. Hampson has discovered a simple truth, that it is so called normality that is a myth". Iain Gale - Modern Painters, 1995