Artist Spotlight: H. Bunzey's Wonderous World

Welcome back, puzzlers. I’m so excited for this month’s blog, because it provides an opportunity to shine a spotlight on a fantastic new puzzle artist, Hannah Bunzey, who has a new collection out with MasterPieces called H. Bunzey’s Wonderous Worlds.

I can honestly say that one of the absolute best things about joining the jigsaw puzzle community in 2020 is the joy of finding new artwork and artists. In a world where AI art is becoming more and more common, as much as I can I have been trying to shine a spotlight on the puzzle artists who pour so much time and effort into their stunning work. From Aimee Stewart to Nathanael Mortensen to Dean MacAdam, I think it’s so cool when artists with distinctive styles and visions are given a platform to share their gifts via the popular medium of jigsaw puzzles.  

In the case of Bunzey, MasterPieces has put out three incredible 1,000-piece puzzles featuring her artwork, each of which I’ll link below. I love how each of these colorful, whimsical images is distinctive and different, but they all have a unifying style. The timing of this blog is apt too, because Hannah is based on Asheville, which has just recently been affected by Hurricane Helene. She can use the support of puzzlers right now, not only through purchase of her puzzles but also through her web shop where she sells her original artworks and prints.

Of these three fun new puzzles, I decided to tackle Daybreak Symphony first.  

Daybreak Symphony

If you were to ask me exactly what this image ‘means,’ I’m not sure I’d have a coherent answer for you, but I love how it’s by turns strange but oddly calming. There are eyes in the trees and the mushrooms. There are faces in the clouds. And who are these tall horned creatures whose bodies give way to doors?

I started, as I often do, with sorting. This puzzle has quite a busy image, so it was somewhat of a challenge to identify clear sections to sort. I separated out pieces that had parts of rainbow, as well as red flowers, yellow petals, and greenery, among a few other distinctive patterns.

Because the rainbow sections stood out to me the most clearly, I started with those. It was an auspicious start to the process and gave me the motivation to carry on.

Next I filled in the red flowers. Flowers are usually a joy to puzzle, because the visual patterns of the petals make it fun to figure them out. I was also able to pick out the sky and trees from the round center of the puzzle, and the doors that make up part of the creatures in the lower sides of the puzzle. So far, so good!

The purple circular frame around the central rainbow of the puzzle was a lot of fun to complete. I realized around this point in the puzzle that the black night sky pieces and the yellow flower petals would be the last to go in and the most difficult.

I worked on putting together as many small interior sections as I could – clouds and mushrooms, especially – in order to fill in as many gaps as possible before the final flurry of puzzling.

Daybreak Symphony

The rest went together so smoothly. I’ve been writing a lot about puzzling the different imagery within the puzzle, but part of what made this one so fun was the irregular piece cut. While some of the pieces were fairly traditional shapes, there was a twisty-turny curviness to the cut that made things a lot more fun. The pieces were also quite sturdy and chunky, and while the puzzle had some glare it wasn’t so shiny that it distracted.

Finishing Daybreak Symphony made me want to do the other two puzzles from H. Bunzey’s Wonderous Worlds series for MasterPieces. Here are the three boxes all together on top of this puzzle. I love how they all look together atop the vibrant puzzle image.

Go Ask Alice

Go Ask Alice is a playful take on Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, but take a look at the protagonist’s head, which was morphed into a kind of cosmic daffodil. 

The World Was Mad

And here is The World Was Mad. The face on this central treelike creature looks reminiscent of the faces in the clouds from Daybreak Symphony. This image reminds me a bit of the visual style of Studio Ghibli but with Hannah’s distinctive twist on it.

I’m so glad to have found Hannah’s amazing artwork via these puzzles, and that the wider world of puzzlers will also have the chance to find her artwork too. Because puzzles demand our attention for a number of hours, they make for a perfect avenue for art appreciation. As you’re putting together a puzzle, you notice all of the small details that might have passed you by if you were only walking past an image in a gallery or museum. Each flying insect, each petal, and each mushroom cap truly stands out. I hope that if you enjoyed seeing this puzzle image, you’ll check out one of Hannah’s puzzles, and I hope that MasterPieces puts out more new releases featuring her images. After having a look at her fantastic Instagram, I can see that there are many more that would make perfect puzzles. 

-Richard (@piecebypiecepuzzler / YouTube channel: Piece By Piece Puzzler)