Sampson

David Warren Seyler

Seyler achieves a carved stone-like appearance in his multi screen color serigraph, “Sampson.” His background in sculpture and stained glass likely informed how he achieved this effect, with the rounded dimensionality and the bold, stylized outline of the figures and their draped clothing.

Seyler chose to portray the moment in which Samson (spelled “Sampson” by the artist) is betrayed by his lover Delilah, who has sent a handmaid to cut Samson’s hair - the source of his superhuman strength - thus rendering him powerless against the Philistine army. The moment remains a pivotal one in Judaism as it eventually leads to Samson’s total defeat of the Philistine army, when, after he is imprisoned within their temple, his hair begins to regrow and he collapses the structure on the entire army, killing them as well as himself.