Balancing Act for Maitland Picozzi
Blending abstract, realism and handcrafted timber design, our Autumn Cover Artist proves creativity rarely follows a curriculum. Jodie Cameron explores the mediums and moods shaping her next chapter…
As I meandered along the ochre roads of the Cooroy hinterland, I found myself pondering our autumn cover artist’s name. Unusual, distinctive and memorable. I cannot help but wonder if her mother is a Bold & The Beautiful tragic (like my mum), or was she inspired by the New South Wales town northwest of Newcastle?
When local artist Maitland Picozzi greets me with a warm smile and we immediately bond over thrifting treasures, a Liz Lennox painting on her wall, and buying art we cannot afford, I give myself permission to pry. My TV soap suspicions are correct. Maitland was named after an actress on Bold & The Beautiful! And, like any good storyline, her path to becoming an artist has included a few plot twists: failing high school art, a quiet inheritance of creative genes, and a whiskey glass balancing delicately on a cinnamon quill and slice of orange which captured the attention of our Editor-in-Chief and now graces our autumn front cover.
“When I finished high school I didn’t know what I wanted to study, so I didn’t force myself to go to uni,” Maitland shared.
That big fat ‘D’ for art certainly did not determine this Noosa native’s journey to the canvas. In fact, it became a delicious full circle moment years later when her former teacher stood inside The Gallery at Peregian Beach where Maitland now works and exhibits. The teacher paused to admire one of her paintings, unaware it belonged to the student she once poorly graded.
“It didn’t matter,” Maitland laughed. “High school art isn’t that serious.”
In a lounge room awash with colour, canvases and beautifully restored mid-century furniture, Maitland speaks about art instinctively and lightly, as if it simply belongs to her. Long before she sold her first painting, she was absorbing the quiet artistry of her family.
Her mother, a milliner by trade who now works in upholstery, grew up in Melbourne’s fashion scene and has always been drawn to making and mending. Her grandmother was a freehand drawer, filling drawers with intricate bird sketches that left a lasting impression on a young girl who would later find her own visual language. On her father’s side, her grandfather was a photographer, and it was his old film camera that led Maitland to first experimenting with image-making, before turning to paint.
“My mum has always been creative,” she says. “I remember being in awe of my grandmother’s drawings as a child, and I still wonder where those sketches ended up. I definitely inherited the camera gene from my grandfather.”
Today, Maitland blends that inherited instinct with an evolving practice, moving between loose, expressive abstraction and meticulous realism with ease, refusing to be confined to one style. Her cocktail glass series began as an experiment during the pandemic. Isolating at home, she painted a whiskey glass for her brother, a collector.
Encouraged to produce more, she began creating luminous works of tumblers, ice cubes and botanicals that quickly gained popularity during the festive season. Tipsy captures a quiet, mischievous spirit – playful, precarious and unexpectedly warm. It is technically precise yet conceptually light-hearted, echoing Maitland’s ability to hold tension and whimsy in the same frame.
“I don’t want to force it,” she says. “I don’t want to stop enjoying it or make it feel like a chore.”
For Maitland, art is freedom. If abstraction feels right, she leans into bold colour and movement. If realism calls, she hones in on the detail and the discipline. This fluidity allows her to evolve alongside her life – reflecting her inner landscape. Her earlier works were bright and busy, over time they softened into more structured, simplified compositions, and now she is returning to a looser, more lively flow – a shift she now recognises as mirroring periods of stress when she craved calm and order.
“I have wondered if people look at my abstracts and think, ‘My kid could do that,’” she chuckled. “But I think that’s good, it makes it more fun and playful. Now everything feels settled in life, I am returning to a more expressive energy.”
Beyond canvas, Maitland’s hands are rarely still. For eight years she has restored mid-century furniture for Midmodoz in Peregian Beach, a role that introduced her to woodworking and The Gallery Peregian Beach. She makes her own float-frames (quite unconventionally) with the help of her retired dad and creates timber bowls and carvings, with plans to design lamps and functional pieces – the timber craftsmanship grounds her practice, making her a true creative chameleon.
Maitland thrives in a collaborative community, working behind-the-scenes on gallery websites, participating in group exhibitions and supporting fellow artists. She vividly recalls her first exhibition and the surreal moment her first painting sold.
“Every time someone buys a painting, it still feels like that first time,” she says. “It never gets less special, and sometimes it makes me cry knowing someone wants my work in their home.”
One of her works now hangs in a mountainside home in France, carefully unstretched, rolled, transported and reassembled by collectors who fell in love with it while holidaying locally. The photo they later sent, still remains a milestone.
“It’s insane,” she laughed. “I have a painting in someone’s home in France.”
For Maitland, creativity has not thrived under rigid instruction but flourished in freedom. She jokes with a friend daily about becoming ‘rich and famous,’ that’s the plan, but her humour is light and there is something beautifully unapologetic in her ambition. After all, creativity doesn’t follow a straight line, it meanders, pivots, balances and sometimes surprises even the person holding the brush. And if her former art teacher happens to wander past her work again? Perhaps some plot twists are best left unresolved.
Follow Maitland’s journey on instagram @izzocip and discover her work at Midmodoz and The Gallery Peregian Beach in Oasis Arcade, Peregian Beach.
