By Alesha Capone
Achille Maiotti has painted an artwork showcasing the “surreal” and sad reality of life during the COVID-19 lockdowns.
Maiotti, who works as a physiotherapist at MyPhysio in Greens Road, Wyndham Vale, said he was inspired by Pablo Picasso’s painting Guernica.
The 1937 oil on canvas was painted after the bombing of a town in the autonomous area of the Basque Country, Spain, by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.
Maiotti said he grew up surrounded by art and enjoys painting as a relaxing and creative past-time.
His father, Ganni Maiotti, was a painter in Italy who had several exhibitions in Europe before he died at the age of 71.
In addition, his uncle Ettore Maiotti is a watercolorist in Italy.
Maiotti his COVID-inspired painting took around two months to complete.
“During the first long lockdown experienced last year I started feeling almost as if we were living in a war-like situation – although I have been lucky enough to never experience war,” he said.
Maiotti said the stillness, quiet and rationing of food at supermarkets in Melbourne had all contributed to the odd atmosphere of lockdowns since March last year.
“Obviously there were deaths reported from Italy, my country of origin, as well as here in Australia,” he added.
“Guernica, the painting by Picasso that inspired my idea, obviously was bombed and the situation was different, but in the end, COVID was – and is – tearing the country apart.”
Maiotti said he has shown the artwork to some of his patients at MyPhysio.
“Most of them liked it and they have given me different interpretations, all of them were great,” he said.
He described the painting as “quite different” to most of his other art.
“I am now in the process of doing another painting, still COVID themed but in a different style and subject,” he said.
In addition to painting, said Maiotti that he loves writing.
He has published four fiction books in Italy and often writes short stories and poetry.
In 2009, he put together a book of his friend Peter Brown’s photography called Incidental Images.
