Boi-oi-oing! 1987

What this is is when I worked at the Aaron Brothers on La Cienega and Beverly, we got this countertop display for these new pens we were selling and it had this cutaway graphic on it with this illustration of a spring or something in it. So I took the ad flat, cut out the spring section and proceeded to Xerox the shit out of it. I ended up using this image in a whole bunch of pieces. I was really attracted to it. Not sure why.

The First 1990

This is the very first piece from the Paper Series of collage/paintings; the experiment that worked, I felt. I remember I framed it up beautifully and gave it to Bruce Conching who didn't understand the value of it at all and liked the frame better than the art. So it goes.

The Glue Fairies "Lost and Profound" CD Cover Design 1999

Cobalt Blue CD Release Poster 2002

This design, made with an element of a Rebecca Ryan collage, never got used. As I recall Sean, the guitar player, who oversaw the design work for the band, chose to go another way. Too bad, too. This is a pretty great poster.

I almost forgot I had done these as well, which better showcase Rebecca's collages.

Paper Exhibition Announcement 1997

Derelict City Bus Composite 2008/2012

As I've said, it was four years ago on the day after a particularly hectic Halloween and I'm on the long trek home from a party. After passing the train here, I came upon what must've been the city transit scrapyard or something. I'm not sure and don't remember clearly, but these pictures are proof I took a break from my walk inside an abandoned city bus. Have you ever been in the driver's seat of an abandoned bus? Well, I have and I'll further say that putting this scene back together after so many insane years is a unique experience for sure.

Saturation Abstracts 1992

I only tried this once - laying down paper and then spraying the shit out of it with several enamels, letting the colors separate on the surface, revealing the linear elements - and you can see why. The results are pretty whatever. Maybe I'll try it again some day with more interesting, more elaborate compositions. If I do, you'll be the first to know.

Für Elise 1993

I met a girl right after moving to San Francisco, a girl named Elise with whom I fell tragically, unrequitedly in love. I made this for her, just before I let my heart get broken, as a Christmas gift and it became the first of the many object collage works that followed. Für Elise is now part of the collection of Ms. Tammy Derrigan of St. Louis and consists of an antique photograph, a cherry stem tied in a knot by the tongue of the object of my misplaced affection, nails pulled from the back of a very old frame, Prestype on antique paper reading, "In Other Words", one birth-control pill marked with the number 23, a bit of rice paper, a nail upon which hang two locks of hair (Elise's and mine) molded with hair gel into interlocking rings and a small piece of paper with a date on it - the date I met Elise.

23 No.1 1989

Wish I could describe just how and why I'm so drawn to the number 23 and one day I'll try. For now, here's a page from the Sentimental Sourcebook which I made as a personal reference to take with me to Budapest back in the Gasoline Days of 1989.

Paper Cuts No.9 2009

Paper Cuts No.8 2009

The Heartpiece Collages 1991

The Heartpiece series was an extension of the Paper Series of collage/paintings. I took the name from a Heinrich Boll play and went to work on a lot of these, maybe fifty, and sold them cheap or gave them out as gifts before, unfortunately, photographing them. These are the only images that remain.

Paper Cuts No.7 2009

Paper Cuts No.6 2008

Exhibition Review 2010

Here's a write-up by Jessica Baran for the Riverfront Times that I don't think I ever saw until now...

It's Getting Light: New Works by Christopher Gustave and Julie Malone

Repetitive and multilayered geometries are the basic grammar of this exhibition of work by two St. Louis-based artists. Malone composes glossy oil paintings of the accumulated squares that come of a quick brushstroke, building the surface to reveal similar underlayers of dabbed chromatics and occasionally emphasizing the shape of the painted gesture with a drawn square outline. Gustave cuts small squares of paper and layers them in ascending sizes, creating tiny piles of color that are then affixed to a paper page or wood panel in idiosyncratic grids. Anonymous pills make their way onto these piles, and do formal service to the image by their offsetting pale hues and circularity. The exhibition appears like a chronicle of non-dramatic narratives — the kind inflected by mid-daylight, affective moods, weather in flux and the dim bruise of tedium — that over time manage to implicate something larger or incite a revelation by default.

Through February 12 at Hoffman Lachance Contemporary, 2713 Sutton Boulevard, Maplewood; 314-960-5322 or www.hoffmanlachancefineart.com. Hours: 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Wed.-Fri., noon-5 p.m. Sat and by appointment.

Jacaranda Series No.1 2006

I went to visit my Mother who had a jacaranda tree in her backyard. Several compositions were made from the debris that tree shed. In others there are twigs and berries. Here there are just a few shorn sticks. This showed at a few group exhibitions before finally selling in 2009.

Nine Crosses 1998/2000

Here's a piece of work I never thought I'd see again. This is one of those that sold almost as soon as it was finished - to an insurance office or something - I don't really remember. The iron discs I got working in a factory in Phoenix. I then painted a real copper patina in the outlines of crosses and oxidized them with a muratic acid solution. It's a pretty nice effect and one I'll look forward to repeating one day again.

Paper Cuts No.5 2009

The Supremes (Nos.1, 2 and 3) 2009

SW Lozenge at Mangia Italiano 2009

Okay, this thing was originally made for the Endless Summer show at Mad Art in the summer of 2004, I think. Well, it didn't sell there and hung at some other shows (despite what a pain in the ass it was to schlep around) and finally wound up decorating a wall at St. Louis, South Grand, hipster hub, Mangia Italiano along with a rotating supply of smaller works all of which were treated with a total lack of respect by the staff there. Fortunately, It wasn't long after I took the Lozenge down that collector Mr. Todd Heilman purchased the piece at a reasonable price (and trade for a camera he had).