TEN is the nickname of Riccardo Colombo, Italian street artist
His approach to street art comes after his academic studies in visual communication, printing, technical drawing and painting. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts with a thesis “Urbanrestyling”.
Riccardo investigates the nature of colour and the type of messages it conveys to the observer. contrast between pure colours, complementary colours, light and shade, warm and cold tones: all these elements are the starting point for the development of a distinctive technique that the artist defines”Triangolism”.
TEN tries to dismantle and rebuild his subjects taken from the animal world by breaking them up into simple geometric shapes: a combination of cold and geometrical forms and living subjects.
In the world we live in, animals are modelled and used to meet human needs. They lose their main feature of “living being” to become food and semi industrial products.
In a similar way, the artist dismantles the animal realistic representation to create a cold and geometrical figure which still maintains the expressive force and the nature of the beast.
TEN studies the boundaries between abstract and realistic painting, questioning the line of demarcation between these two worlds; when and how technical drawing – made of lines, angles and geometric rules – turns into painting starting to interfere with the observer and producing new feelings.
Since 1998 Ten has been approaching graffiti writing starting a path linked to street art that led him to paint for important urban art festivals and artistic residences in the USA, Norway, Nepal, England and Italy including Upfest in Bristol, Color Kathmandu, Vedo in Colors of Civitanova Marche, Art B&B New York, Sat Bergen.
Ten worked on commission for municipal administrations and private companies.
Since 2014 he has been working with national and international art galleries taking part in group exhibitions and solo shows.
Since 2014 he has been president of the Pigmenti association which manages the Street Alps urban art festival and coordinates art projects with the Mission To Art collective (www.pigmenti.org - www.missiontoart.com).
Since 2018 he has been in charge of the artistic direction of the "Urban Gallery" project of Beeozanam community hub based in Turin and since 2019 he has been part of the scientific committee of the Filippo Scroppo contemporary art gallery in Torre Pellice.
In 2021 he took part in the Cabin Street project which became a documentary broadcast on the Sky Arte channel and in the same year he exhibited his works by creating "Cromoblock", the first actually aumetated art exhibition curated by Vera Cannevazzi.
In 2022 he exhibited his Cromoblock collection at the Graphicdays festival in Turin.
In February 2023 he inaugurated his first solo show in Asia with the exhibition "Dis-Play" at the Novalis gallery in Hong Kong.
He works in his studio in Pinerolo (Turin) a few km from the beloved Alps.
