Piece by piece: the Bristol student taking on complex jigsaws

By Filiz Emily Gurer, News Editor

A mathematics student at the University of Bristol has gained online attention through his hobby of completing complex jigsaw puzzles.

The student has over 63,000 followers on his Instagram account ‘puzzlesbynathan’, where he is posting time-lapse videos of his jigsaw marathons.

His most recent jigsaw is a 4,000-piece montage of London, completed in just over 48 hours.

He had also previously completed a 5,000-piece rainbow colour spectrum jigsaw in 35.5 hours, which attracted close to 17,000 likes on Instagram.

Speaking to Epigram, Nathan said that whilst he was initially sceptical about jigsaws, as he felt they were ‘not cool’, he is glad that he tried them and now enjoys doing them, as a ‘way of bringing order to chaos’.

He says they provide the perfect opportunity to ‘relax and relieve stress for a few hours of the day, no matter what else is happening in the world around me – which has been especially useful in the recent COVID-19 times’.

‘You know exactly how a puzzle will end up – there’s no uncertainty about it.’

Explaining that he has done too many puzzles to display them all, and currently only displays his two most prized jigsaws, he states that he ‘love[s] puzzles for the benefits of the process and journey rather than the end product itself.’

For his next project, he is thinking that he might go for a 6000-piece puzzle.

Nathan says he would encourage other people to give it a go and would recommend ‘500 to 1000-piece puzzles with vibrant colours to start off with.’

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