Nuremberg, Germany-based artist Gerhard Mayer has sifted through thousands upon thousands of puzzle pieces from a wide range of jigsaw puzzles to create his collection of murals. For Mayer, the idea behind his work is simple: create an image from countless other pictures, following the mapped out guidelines of your basic puzzle. The exception to his creations is that they are multilayered, making them almost sculptural, though one does not notice this detail unless they view it from the side.
The artist’s statement explains his work further: “Gerhard Mayer’s puzzle pictures blend fragments of architecture and landscape, mingle animal fur with foliage, and cause multihued flowers to bloom within the sparkling colors of fireworks. Thus he capitalizes artistically on what makes the puzzle a riddle, which is the origin of the name: namely, the ambiguity of the parts that demands patience of the player. Is it a piece of the sky or a bit of sea? Tree trunk or field? In Gerhard Mayer’s puzzle pictures, color and structure establish unsuspected connections. Yet his pictures hover between the figurative and nonfigurative.”
