Born in Cuba, Michal left the country with her parents after Castro’s takeover. The family lived in Spain until they were granted refugee status by the US and settled in Connecticut, where Michal first encountered modernist American, surrealist and impressionist masterpieces at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford. Although still a child, she was left with a lasting impression of this experience. Michal is self-taught and considers herself a postmodernist. A “doodler” in her youth, she began a serious exploration of art forms in adulthood, upon receiving encouragement from other artists. She has worked in a variety of mediums yet continually returns to drawing and painting. Most of her work begins in ink, and she then layers on watercolor, crayon, charcoal, marker, and acrylic paint. Her art is formed via synesthesia, a perceptual phenomenon in which one sense (in Michal’s case, hearing) is simultaneously perceived by one or more additional senses. When Michal hears music, she sees shapes and colors. The response is involuntary and produces a fusion of senses. Her drawings and paintings are a result of seeing sound as color.