Artist Federico Picci is not only a digital illustrator, but also a pianist. When he sits down at the keys, he says, “I always try to imagine how the music that I play might have a shape, a color, a mass or even a smell. As a human being, we are unable to see it, but we can actually feel it through our infinity imagination.” In his delightful digital art series called “Filling Spaces,” he shows what the sound might look like if we were capable of witnessing it in solid form, conveying how the immaterial splendor of a musical composition can suffuse an otherwise empty room.
In the pictures, peach-toned bubbles overflow from underneath the lid of a piano and spill forth from a gramophone. Some rise to the ceiling or float mid-air, while others roll to the floor to jostle the legs of chairs and a table. A collection of them even settle, humorously, like a beard on the stony face of a bust statue. The overall imagery seems to suggest the soft, light, and ethereal energy of music as it spreads through space, characterized by its uniquely whimsical buoyancy.
Picci is currently studying in Florence, Italy, and the city’s influence is evident in the classical architecture that sets the backdrop for the scenes. He explains that his goal was for the series to “look like a short movie,” telling a story with a sense of realism. The story, then, is one of music’s power to move and to charm us — one that invites us to appreciate its beauty from a more imaginative perspective.
See more of Federico Picci’s work below.
Images courtesy of Federico Picci
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