I am a treasure seeker, seeking truth. What truth ? The reality of what is made visible through light, the shapes and forms it creates, it effects everything that we perceive, and find therefore feel among what seems obvious. Searching for reality is hunting for rainbows. That is why I paint all day long, to travel and observe what is happening in between perception and objects. However painting and truth do not align, painting has an end (a finished work to be shared) whereas truth doesn’t have an end (certainty and belief in our truth can extinguish curiosity in life ).
"As a child, I liked to stay in the orchards and the forest near our house in the suburbs of Paris. I was fascinated by the perfection of nature and wanted to find the essence in it ".
Richard Colombel began painting at the age of 11 in a local school. He was guided there by the two ascetics of painting: André Lauran, from the school of Lyon (creator of Sanzism), and Véronique Véron (student of M.H. Vieira da Silva).
At the age of 16, he studied graphic arts, art history and bas-relief with prize-winning artists of the Grand Prix de Rome at the rue Madame school in Paris, and then passing with flying colours, was accepted at the école nationale des arts décoratifs de Paris. There he studied volume and space with Christian Germanaz, the great interior architect of F. Mitterand and J. Chirac.
Richard wrote a thesis on a new vision of architectural space. An exceptional student, he received his diploma with honours.
In parallel to his studies, he alternated between work for the Chelles Museum (Seine et Marne) as an illustrator on the the discovery of 700 Merovingian sarcophagi and drawings of nudes sketches of dissected corpses in the company of medical students from the Salpêtrière.
"Through the drawing, I question the object and what it evokes in me. Drawing a corpse becomes a real reflection on the very condition of our being".
"Since the walks in the woods of my childhood, this obsession with the pursuit of knowledge has stayed with me. When I was fortunate enough to meet an authentic learned Buddhist master, Guendune Rinpoche, at the age of 19 years old. He gave me the right tools to aid my search for knowledge. Slowly I began to understand the importance of discipline in learning, how this shapes the mind and thus perception, and what this could bring to my life and my art. This understanding is why I decided to take a plunge". After graduating in decorative arts, Richard went on a Buddhist retreat 7 years in a hermitage on the plateaux of the Auvergne.
"Meditation is an open door to the infinite creative aspect of our mind. In this space there is no judgment or control. Accessing this dimension is certainly a great help to complete an artist's observational skills, necessary to translate life and ones perceptions onto canvas".
In the intervening years, Richards' interest in art led him to architecture. As an assistant, he worked on several major projects for temples, monasteries and universities. Initially in France, he later spent ten years working in India and Nepal, alongside a German architect, Willy Kroeger.
"Architecture is a developed art of drawing. When drawing creates the illusion of space, architecture is its projection. Inventing a circulation, a breath is fascinating because here the spectator is involved in the created work".
In 2012, he moved to Berlin and took up painting again, his first love. Picking up from the entrails of his origins, he is himself flabbergasted by the spontaneous creativity he experiences now, built upon the life he has lived. His strokes and colours are full of strength, the fruit of an energy that never seems to dry up.
To say with the words of Georg Nothelfer (Berlin Gallery) "Your work pleases the eyes, in a very mysterious way" or Matthew L.Rosin (Tokyo Gallery) "I never saw something like that before" Or Sally Chu (Hong Kong Gallery) " Most of the artist reach your perfection only when there are very old".
Richard Colombel began painting at the age of 11 in a local school. He was guided there by the two ascetics of painting: André Lauran, from the school of Lyon (creator of Sanzism), and Véronique Véron (student of M.H. Vieira da Silva).
At the age of 16, he studied graphic arts, art history and bas-relief with prize-winning artists of the Grand Prix de Rome at the rue Madame school in Paris, and then passing with flying colours, was accepted at the école nationale des arts décoratifs de Paris. There he studied volume and space with Christian Germanaz, the great interior architect of F. Mitterand and J. Chirac.
Richard wrote a thesis on a new vision of architectural space. An exceptional student, he received his diploma with honours.
In parallel to his studies, he alternated between work for the Chelles Museum (Seine et Marne) as an illustrator on the the discovery of 700 Merovingian sarcophagi and drawings of nudes sketches of dissected corpses in the company of medical students from the Salpêtrière.
"Through the drawing, I question the object and what it evokes in me. Drawing a corpse becomes a real reflection on the very condition of our being".
"Since the walks in the woods of my childhood, this obsession with the pursuit of knowledge has stayed with me. When I was fortunate enough to meet an authentic learned Buddhist master, Guendune Rinpoche, at the age of 19 years old. He gave me the right tools to aid my search for knowledge. Slowly I began to understand the importance of discipline in learning, how this shapes the mind and thus perception, and what this could bring to my life and my art. This understanding is why I decided to take a plunge". After graduating in decorative arts, Richard went on a Buddhist retreat 7 years in a hermitage on the plateaux of the Auvergne.
"Meditation is an open door to the infinite creative aspect of our mind. In this space there is no judgment or control. Accessing this dimension is certainly a great help to complete an artist's observational skills, necessary to translate life and ones perceptions onto canvas".
In the intervening years, Richards' interest in art led him to architecture. As an assistant, he worked on several major projects for temples, monasteries and universities. Initially in France, he later spent ten years working in India and Nepal, alongside a German architect, Willy Kroeger.
"Architecture is a developed art of drawing. When drawing creates the illusion of space, architecture is its projection. Inventing a circulation, a breath is fascinating because here the spectator is involved in the created work".
In 2012, he moved to Berlin and took up painting again, his first love. Picking up from the entrails of his origins, he is himself flabbergasted by the spontaneous creativity he experiences now, built upon the life he has lived. His strokes and colours are full of strength, the fruit of an energy that never seems to dry up.
To say with the words of Georg Nothelfer (Berlin Gallery) "Your work pleases the eyes, in a very mysterious way" or Matthew L.Rosin (Tokyo Gallery) "I never saw something like that before" Or Sally Chu (Hong Kong Gallery) " Most of the artist reach your perfection only when there are very old".