Selected Early Work

“The abstract language in Michelle Samour's large-scale handmade paper pieces consists of circles, ovals, sinuous lines, and points of light embedded within dark, textured grounds. These intuitively derived images simultaneously suggest stars and atoms, galaxies and microbes – constituent elements of the infinite and the infinitesimal. Presented as an encompassing installation, the two-dimensional works appear as juxtapositions of discrete yet related meditations on cosmology, biology, and mythology. Samour also creates large, ovoid, three-dimensional forms surfaced with hand-made paper patterned with similar macrocosmic/microcosmic imagery. This format works to intensify the artist's chosen content. The egg suggests birth, both organically and metaphorically, and has also been used as a symbol of absolute totality: the "cosmic egg." On each egg, a curious tension exists between the materiality of its paper surface and the infinite depth suggested by its imagery. The eggs, and their nested cluster, are visual expressions of some of the most profound cosmological questions of our day. Is the universe an open or closed system? Do multiple universes exist simultaneously?”

— Nick Capasso, The 1999 deCordova Annual Exhibition Catalog