Puzzleman Leung constructs a narrative through props in a series to make you look twice

Thread of Inspiration is a series in partnership with Pinterest which explores how inspiration can come from unexpected places. Throughout the year we'll be inviting a host of creatives to create amazing artworks, and sharing the intriguing stories behind how they come up with new ideas. Every other month a new creative will be introduced, tasked with creating new works inspired by the artist who came before them in the chain.

Picking up the creative baton from Maaike Canne in the next leg of our Thread of Inspiration series – a chain of projects where each is inspired by the outcome that came before it – is photographer Puzzleman Leung. Tasked with the job of inspecting Maaike’s depiction of a futuristic illustrated city, which was inspired by Ricardo Bessa’s animations for television series The End of the F***king World, the Taipei-based photographer actually became inspired by what he perceived as missing from Maaike’s works.

Within the illustrator’s seven pieces made in the last instance of this project, Puzzle instantly noticed a couple of possible jumping off points for inspiration. His instant thought was simply how neat the works were, admiring the highly intricate line marks across Maaike’s depiction of a library, a bank, a casino, a bowling alley, theatre and hotel. Looking wider at the series as a whole however, the photographer noticed the lack of a person, or as he would put it, “a character”, to play a role within the works. With portrait photography making up a larger part of his portfolio to date, it’s no wonder he noticed the fact that this was missing, but it actually led Puzzle to make character-less works too. “My first move,” he tells It’s Nice That, “was to trace the character, like a detective in the movies.” The outcome therefore is a selection of highly art directed investigative imagery.

At first however this inspiration circle was filled with smaller circles, mostly jumping between two themes of bold colour-centred photographs, and food. The latter is a consistent inspiration for Puzzle it turns out, since it’s something he’s in contact with daily, and he tends “to find my inspiration through daily life. It naturally becomes some of the inspiration,” says the photographer. “When I see something interesting in daily life, I will observe it for a while, and although I may not use it in the first place, I still hope one day I will in future work.”

As a result Puzzle has a constant backlog of possible ideas and concepts, which his photography can be applied to, and always in a highly colourful way stylistically. Researching thoroughly into colour palettes, and other artist’s use of block colour within a photograph heavily at this beginning stage, the consideration of colour “is one of the most important factors in my works,” in general says Puzzle. “I always get inspiration from colour and lightness.”

Utilising Pinterest to gather these references for his Thread of Inspiration outcome, it’s a way of working Puzzle is used to, and fond of as “Pinterest is the main tool I use when I start a project or I am shooting,” he explains. Puzzle finds this most helpful in the beginning, settling on a key word for a reference, “then I get more suggestions through the relation,” he explains. A tried and tested way of generating ideas and aesthetics in his work, “I always get more ideas unexpectedly,” he adds. This explains what an outside viewer might perceive as quite a random thread of ideas at the beginning of Puzzle’s Pinterest board, where references jump between perfectly arranged plastic bags to a portrait, a sculpture, French toast, egg yolks, matcha tea ice cream, some Penguin paperbacks and the work of Guy Bourdin.

And yet despite this thoroughly thoughtful process, none of the final images Puzzle has selected feel over composed. In fact, it’s a level a of humour which a viewer immediately notices, our own team chuckling over outcomes as the images came in. “I am pretty satisfied with the final pieces, as they’re quite my usual style,” explains the photographer when discussing how this series fits within his wider work. “Humour and colour are two important elements in my work and I’m happy I was able to utilise these two elements for the shooting.”

Now completed with his leg of this creative relay, Puzzle’s excited to see who and how his work is interpreted next. Considering the vast inspirations the photographer pulled from Maaike’s works it’s not a particular outcome he’s hoping for, more that he hopes his works provide enough inspiration. “It will be great if I find some traces of my works too!”