One is an emerging artist whose choice of materials can be downright shocking (cow tongue, anyone?); the other is an established practitioner who redefines an age-old genre. Between the two of them, Allen Hampton and Liz Bryant are making some of the most compelling sculpture you’ll find in Tampa Bay. Hampton, an MFA student at USF, caught our attention earlier this year at Informe, a student show hosted by Flight 19. His “Sepulchresic Vessels” displayed cows’ tongues hand-tattooed by the artist in formaldehyde-filled urns. Bryant breathes contemporary life into figurative sculpture, rendering female bodies in buttery brown clay and placing them atop a base covered with colorful mixed-media collage.
flickr.com/photos/allenhampton; lizbryant.com.
This article appears in Sep 12-18, 2007.