Michael's process follows a meditative and iterative cycle of simplification and abstraction by focusing completely on a single formal component like line, shape, colour, or texture. Sometimes, even after many iterations, the ‘completed’ image bears an unmistakable trace of the original and other times the evolution of abstractions transforms the source material into something surprisingly different.

Previously this cycle of iterations began with observations in Michael's home, but this body of work departs from the observed and lived in and enters fictitious and proposed environments. Architectural designs and dioramas compiled from multiple homes, satellite images, magazines, bird cages, beehives, and ambiguous structures form the foundation on which these pictures are based.