Milan Studio Makes Wallpapers That Shift With the Light

One wall can hold three different pictures. Milan collective Carnovsky has designed a trio of wallpapers, called RGB-Not, that shift and reveal new layers as lighting changes. The studio presents the digitally printed designs as contemporary frescoes, large wall pictures in the spirit of historic plaster murals, made for modern rooms. Dezeen featured the collection in its showroom.

Carnovsky is the Milan-based studio of artist and designer duo Francesco Rugi and Silvia Quintanilla. The new wallpapers keep the light-interactive qualities of the pair's original RGB collection, first launched in 2010. In plain terms, the printed surface responds to light. Change the lamp, and a different layer steps forward.

The collection holds three different iterations of otherworldly scenes. Carnovsky describes them as windows opening onto fantastic worlds and enchanted forests, dense with animals, plants and strange figures layered together. The image moves without moving. Look longer, and the wall keeps giving you more.

Each wallpaper is made to order. It is digitally printed on non-woven material, a tough, paper-like base favoured for sharp detail and stable hanging, and supplied in 100-centimetre-wide rolls. All of the RGB-Not designs are custom-made, so the pattern is sized to the buyer's wall rather than cut from a fixed repeat. Carnovsky lists the range as custom production.

The idea has deep roots. Carnovsky calls RGB an ongoing project that experiments with the interaction between printed and light colours, an exploration of how deep a flat surface can feel. Early RGB wallpapers, first covered in 2010, superimposed imagery printed in red, green, yellow and blue to create that shifting effect. Dezeen

The studio's wallpaper work has since entered the permanent wallcovering collection of the Cooper Hewitt museum and was selected as best wallpaper by Wallpaper* magazine. Carnovsky later staged the WORLD solo exhibition at the Lotte Gallery in Seoul in 2018. It is a track record built wall by wall.

What makes this stand out for a general viewer is the ease. No screens. No wiring. Just ink, paper and light. For fans, this means a living-room wall can feel different at breakfast and at night, without repainting or rehanging. If you like art that plays along with the room, this one is built for that.