Michael grew up in Winchester. He studied librarianship and realised early on that he didn't want to be a librarian. Going to life-drawing classes cheered him up. A flatmate told him to do a degree in Fine Art. Afterwards he studied portraiture at Lavender Hill Studios. He came back to Winchester to paint in a studio not far from the water meadows. Natural light from a window to the right. He set up a piece of garlic next to a blue cup and painted it over and over. And lemons, pears. He still paints the blue cup.
Since 2012 he has had work accepted for the annual exhibitions of the New English Art Club and the Royal Institute of Oil Painters. In 2014 he was a drawing scholar with the New English Art Club. In 2015 he won both the Winsor & Newton Award and the Le Clerc Fowle Medal for outstanding group of paintings.
He is represented in London by GrandyArt and teaches painting at the Mill Studio in Arundel and the Colour Factory Winchester. He says, “We draw and paint in a traditional style from life. I encourage slowing down, working big to small, finding the big colour shapes. It's a slightly abstract way into the painting. It's how I work.”