Mariam Mifsud De Giorgio is a Maltese painter and illustrator who turns the quiet rituals of Mediterranean home life — morning coffee, a bath, a Sunday lunch — into vivid, whimsical scenes you want to step into. She paints in acrylics from a studio in her home in Birkirkara, in the gaps a family of five children leaves her. We asked her where the paintings come from, how she makes them and where they look best at home. The answers are her own.
Who is Mariam De Giorgio?
“I started doodling by the age of three,” Mariam says, “and I always won competitions in primary school.” In secondary school her parents steered her towards other subjects, so she took summer classes instead and sat her O-level in art on the side. At A-level, her lecturers gave her the nod: she could go places.
She studied Fine Arts at MCAST Institute of Art and Design in Mosta and graduated with a BA (Hons). Then came a pause. “I got married, and now I have five children.” Her first solo exhibition opened right after the birth of her youngest, encouraged and curated — then and since — by Professor Charlene Vella. A second followed in 2024, and she has shown her work in Paris, Madrid, Luxembourg and Brussels. Her third solo exhibition opens in March 2027.
What does her art look like?
In her own words: “A whimsical, vibrant celebration of everyday Mediterranean life and family. I blend elements of fantasy with real-world observations.”
What sets her paintings apart is what she chooses to celebrate. “My style elevates mundane, routine tasks into moments of profound tranquility, intimacy and joy, with a vivid palette.” A bathtub, a laid table, a street decorated for the village feast: familiar places, painted in colours slightly warmer and brighter than real life.
Malta, as she sees it
Village FestaMariam De Giorgio
The flower kiosk in VallettaMariam De Giorgio
Saint Lucy StreetMariam De Giorgio
Blue lagoon in late MayMariam De Giorgio
Village Festa is the one to start with if you want a piece of Maltese summer on your wall. See all prints by Mariam De Giorgio →
Where does the inspiration come from?
“I find inspiration in the mundane. Since I’m a housewife, these things inspire me most. I turn the most obvious, simple moments into beauty.” And the people in the paintings are rarely strangers: “My children are mostly my muses.”
Her heroes are storytellers of everyday life — “mainly Norman Rockwell, Jessie Willcox Smith, Matisse, Toulouse-Lautrec” — and you can feel all four in her crowded tables, patterned cloths and warm, confident colour.
Around the family table
Easter BreakfastMariam De Giorgio
Garden BanquetMariam De Giorgio
Figolli in the NetherlandsMariam De Giorgio
Memory of a Christmas Day lunchMariam De Giorgio
As a pair: Easter Breakfast and Garden Banquet, side by side above a dining table. See the collection →
If you like her work, Matisse and Toulouse-Lautrec sit well beside it.
The story behind Morning coffee
Morning coffee is exactly what it says: a routine morning. “Mocha coffee, some freshly bought lemons in preparation for luncheon, and freshly picked flowers from the roof garden.”
Nothing happens in it, and that is the point. The moka pot, the blue-and-white jar and the lemons are painted with the same care as a portrait — the kind of quiet start to the day she wants her paintings to give back to the people who live with them.
How are the paintings made?
Everything is painted in acrylics, in her studio at home. There is no fixed timetable. “I work at the first welcoming opportunity, when the house is not chaotic, the children are at school or right after their bedtime. It depends how much strength I have left.”
Right now those hours go to one thing: building a new body of work for her third solo exhibition, opening in March 2027.
“I turn the most obvious, simple moments into beauty.”
What should you feel in front of one?
“A sense of deep tranquility, nostalgia and an uplifting joie de vivre. The paintings act as emotional portals that invite viewers to step out of their chaotic routines and into a softer, more affectionate reality.”
Where do her prints look best?
Her answer is refreshingly simple: “basically anywhere in the house!” Living rooms, stairways, entryways and kitchens — even bedrooms. And there is one room she has painted specifically: “They go well in bathrooms, with my bath paintings.”
Paintings for the bathroom
Le bain en vertMariam De Giorgio
Pink chinoiserie bathroomMariam De Giorgio
Grandma's bathroomMariam De Giorgio
Our tip: Le bain en vert in a 50×70 oak frame turns a plain bathroom wall into the calmest spot in the house. See the collection →
Her still lifes and dining scenes are made for the kitchen and the dining room, and the street scenes from Valletta work well in a hallway, where they greet you on the way in. For two or three together, our gallery wall templates give you the exact measurements, and our oak and black frames fit the prints exactly.
Something you might not know
“I like playing the charango. I love gardening, roses and doing functional fitness workouts.” The flowers in Morning coffee came straight from her roof garden.
“I’m also a practising Roman Catholic, and I believe that God gave me this talent to show that beauty is found in the simplest of things.”
The collection
All Mariam De Giorgio prints, from A4 to 100×140 cm
Printed to fit our frames exactly — in oak, black or colour.
Shop Mariam De GiorgioFollow Mariam on Instagram as @mariamdegiorgio.