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. 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 2014 he’s the art directior of street art festival Street Alps.