Mikhail, who now works from his studio in Moscow, studied at the revered Repin Institute, St Petersburg and is an inspirational teacher. He recently secured a major commission from Benetton who featured a series of his butterfly works on a line of T-shirts. He is an artist who rejects the notion that there should be any sense of self-reflection in contemporary art. He prefers to move forward through trial and error, as if his creativity were part of a natural evolutionary process. To watch him paint is a fascinating and energised spectacle - various objects, hands and even his own bare feet serve all serve as tools at his disposal.
