Samuels' practice can be characterised as a form of contemporary bricolage, which utlises industrially produced Modernist furniture and light. Elements such as cabinets, tables and sideboards are liberated from their traditional role, cut up and reconfigured into structures that no longer have a utilitarian purpose. Through their displacement and reconfiguration any functional reading of the elements is disrupted. In dislocating and rupturing everyday objects Samuels heightens the tension between the functional aspect of the objects used and their immaterial value. In pushing his work towards abstraction the artist maintains the notion that abstraction is only ever possible in relation to function. The artist reasserts arts autonomy infusing the work with an energy and tension that draws upon contemporary concepts of collapse, ruin, reforming and recycling.

Within the legacy of the bricoleur and in the spirit of adhocism Samuels is adept at performing numerous tasks within the constraints he imposes upon himself in terms of his materials and resources. Samuels is intent on undertaking work spontaneously with the resources available to him, often working without plans, or from sketches, he makes decisions that result in structures that are both abstract and dynamic, and which contain a performative energy.

In a recent move Samuels uses teak G-Plan furniture (a pioneering range of British Modern furniture) to restrict his palette, previously having used brightly colored and pattered (though still limited) Formica. In selecting this, and furniture of similar styles and tones Samuels emphasizes the dynamic and angled surfaces of his installations and sculptures, and in a similar move to the Deconstructivist architects subverts the functional aspects of modernist simplicity. With a nod to Schwitters Merzbau - visually, physically and methodically - Samuels embraces ideas of fragmentation and visual unpredictability whilst revealing a controlled coherence. Samuels has repeatedly used light and translucent Perspex within his installations and sculptures such inclusions adding to the dialectic of presence and absence, highlighting the forms and exaggerating the voids within his structures.

Michael Samuels lives and works in London. He has exhibited internationally including recent exhibitions at Ville du Parc Centre d'art Contemporain, France, Kunsthal KAdE, The Netherlands, The Zabludowicz Collection, London, The EDF Foundation, France, LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, Spain.