"All I do is paint every day. It is an obsession, I can't stop" says Michael Flohr, a 27 year-old San Diego artist whose modern impressionist paintings of bar and cafe scenes and rainswept city streets offer a social commentary on our times.

"I can tell different feelings and attitudes you get from people - from their faces and conversations - and I blend their figures and gestures." Nightlife in cafes mirrors the social status quo, he observes. "You get a lot of views on what is going on in the world, hearing what people are saying. A man earning a million dollars sits next to someone who can barely afford the beer they are drinking - so many different worlds come together in a bar or cafe."

To some extent, Michael paints rather than writes his social commentary. "I am not the best writer", he admits. "I have these great thoughts and they come out better on canvas than as the written word on paper." His broad, square, brushstrokes create an almost mosaic effect obscuring the figures in his paintings and leaving an illusion of the characters depicted to tell the story in vivid, pure pigmented colors through their gestures and subtleties.

At a young age it was found he suffers from dyslexia, and by second grade had fallen behind in school. As a result, his parents arranged tutoring, consisting of math, reading and, best of all, art classes where he excelled. His father David, owner of an auto repair business, and his mother Sandy, who works in the family business, encouraged him in the arts. In fact, he says his mother is his best critic. Nurtured in a happy, fun home, Michael and his younger sister Kristine grew up in the small dusty town of Lakeside in San Diego County, a place he describes as "nice and safe." Fishing trips on the nearby lakes with his father were a highlight of this youth. And everywhere Michael went, he took a notebook and drew.

After attending Academy of Art College in San Francisco, he attended New York's Society of Illustrators. After graduating, he toured Europe, peaking his interest in European culture. It was this experience that led him to pursue his desire to capture the nuances of social interaction, city nightlife and cityscapes in his artwork.

His style has been described as a cornucopia of avant-garde, abstract expressionism, and impressionism. "I love the colors of Cezanne, and try to take some of them for my own paintings, adding a contemporary twist. "The challenge is not to make a painting look overdone, but to synthesize a scene down to its essence, he says, likening the technique to that of John Singer Sargent's, using the least number of brushstrokes.

Michael captures moments in time that bring back memories to the viewer through his paintings and limited edition prints.