Christian Picciolini grew up on the South side of Chicago. After beginning a career in the corporate world and earning a degree in International Relations at DePaul University, he once again began photographing, writing and painting. As a student at DePaul, he studied with Alan Cohen. Christian currently owns Sinister Muse Records, an independent music label, and GOLDMILL Group, an artist development and management firm and is the General Manager for iconic music television program, JBTV.

On July 3, 2004, Picciolini’s younger brother, Alex, was tragically murdered. In late 2004, Picciolini dedicated his ‘Descansos’ collection to his brother’s memory.

In 2009, Picciolini began his autobiographical writing journey and finished his memoir Romantic Violence: Memoirs of an American Skinhead. The memoir explores how a good kid from a loving family could be drawn into a world of hate and violence and the toll that hatred has on his family. It shows the desperate struggle of a child looking for a place to belong, an identity of his own when he is straddling two different cultures.

Married to Britton Mauchline, Picciolini lives in the Chicago area with his wife and two children.