MURA · THE COLLECTION

The Underwater Piano

A grand piano stands on the seabed among rocks and weed, its lid open, its keys still white, and a school of goldfish swims up out of it towards the light. The water is green and gold and full of small bubbles. Whatever it played, it is still playing.

Mura Studio · 2026 · Watercolour · Contemporary · story written 25 September 2026

What is going on

A piano is the most indoor object there is, and here it is in the most outdoor place, and it does not seem to mind. The fish leave it in a rising line, like notes leaving a stave, and the light comes down from the surface in broken patches on the sand. The picture is a watercolour, loose and granulating, with the paper showing through the water.

How to look at it

Follow the fish. They start at the keyboard and climb to the top of the picture, and the line they make is the tune. Then look at the piano's lacquer, which has become a coral of purples, blues and orange where the water has worked on it, and at the keys, which are the one clean thing in the picture. The right side is nearly empty: sand, light, one distant fish. The silence around the music is part of it.

Why it is in Mura

Elsewhere, mood cool. On a television it moves slowly in the eye, the way water does, and it is the picture in the collection most obviously made for children, who tend to find the fish before the piano.