Born in Mendocino County, California, Michael was surrounded by the Pacific Ocean on one side, and the majestic redwood trees on the other. His father worked in the timber industry, and as a child Michael resided throughout the Northwest; wherever his father's  work would take him: California, Montana, Colorado, Oregon, and Idaho.  Scenes of the Wild West are as familiar to him as the back of his hand. His grandfather, Paul B. Oldenburg, was a scenic artist for MGM Studios and Michael still has some of the paint brushes used by his mother's father,  Art was always a part of his family.

He came to Pennsylvania for the first time for college in 1983 and never forgot driving beneath the majestic canopies of the summer hardwood forests as the filtered light danced through the shade.  He had never seen such vast expanses of deciduous trees. He had only known the noble conifers of the West. The festival of coloration of the Pennsylvania woods heightened his colorist sensibilities as an oil painter. The rich verdant canopies, the vibrant fall foliage, and the nakedness of the hardwood trees in winter, revealed to him those things which seemed to mirror human experiences: the sense of gain and loss, the realities of life and death, the letting go process of life, and the ever renewing cycle of nature.

Feeling fortunate to have experienced the marvelous vistas of Pennsylvania, and the wide expanses of the Western United States and Europe, his most recent body of work intentionally frames his encounters and he appreciates the benefits of their  beauty.  He expresses through his art the reality that the well being of our environment impacts the health of our world and positively contributes to our quality of life. He hopes to use his art to bring greater awareness of the beauty of life and nature, to see people as vessels, and in so doing, help bring about positive change for a fulfilling and sustainable future.

He posits that  art must still be seen as a powerful tool whereby we can transform the world.