Artist Jules Wittock creates massive, squiggly mazes. He paints large feats of modern art that feel like graphically designed, complex conundrums with a beginning, middle and end; with hidden messages and meanings set with the organised chaos of each work of art. But there's not laptop for drawing in sight and an Adobe app to call on, this artist creates elegant puzzle-paintings from instinct and through necessity.
Jules creates and paints his maze art as a form of therapy, he's compulsive in his desire to just… create. It began in childhood as doodles and, he tells me, these mazes just became "bigger and bigger and bigger". He says each time he struggled, mentally, a maze would be his way to be at ease. Now his largest works of art measure 10m x 3m and the latest works are on display at the Affordable Art Fair Hampstead in London, this week until Sunday.
At first Jules was afraid to share his ideas and art - "I don't want to be the guy in Prisoners that is doing weird stuff on the wall," he laughs. But the reality is painting these complex mazes helps ease his mind. He tells me: "It's like my bubble and when I paint I can just breathe, and be in my own world. I find creativity flows through the logic that I am implementing into the maze."
The best art makes you think as well as feel, and Jules' paintings offer the scope for both. Each painting is thematic, with words hidden in the maze of squirming lines. The artist tells me how often he doesn't know the theme, the words, or the exit from his art until he's consumed in the process of painting it.
A typical painting, Jules explains, could have the word 'Loss' hidden within it, and the word 'Love', so the theme will be 'Family'. Each painting's theme is the title, so onlookers can gaze and seek out the words and the numerous routes. These are elegant puzzles with an entrance and an exit, labyrinths to explore and wrong paths to stumble down.
Despite the scale of each painting, these are massive works to literally stand within and explore. There's a sense Jules is asking us questions and posing whether choice matters in modern life - each painting is a series of decisions as the viewer seeks a way out, discovering hidden words and meaning.
But also, Jules is just creating art that makes us smile and which he loves to make, he smiles and says: "What guides me is that I'm enjoying what I'm doing, and that's the most important part for me because when it's finished, I'm like, 'Okay, I had pleasure by doing that'."
It helps that Jules' creative process feels loose and comfortable. Despite the scale of his paintings there's not a computer in sight or a version of Photoshop open, everything is jotted down in his head. "I get ideas when running," he says and just has to start painting.
"I think it's because my brain just never stopped doing that since I was seven," says Jules who reveals he's been painting these puzzle-maze works of art since childhood. "In fact, I do not have to think when I'm doing my stuff, it's like my own world and when I'm doing it, I'm just picturing myself inside [the maze]."
Showing his work is never easy, he tells me. As each painting is personal and imperfect, it's a glimpse into how he feels and how he sees the world. "That's the purpose of my installation, it's so that people can go inside of my mind […] That's why the piece is called 'Mindsets', and they can be inserted inside my mazes," explains Jules.
He tells me how showing his art for the first time helped him overcome mental health issues and anxieties, and his art, these large labyrinthine mazes, has helped him reconnect with people.
"It's kind of therapeutic," says Jules who tells me his work is "quite obsessional" and each painting becomes more complex and so more rewarding to paint and to view. He points me to work he's created that has small areas unfilled by lines and squiggles and tells me these "make him crazy" and "frustrated"; the gaps of white space in a sea if complexity plays on his mind - gaps that need filling. He jokes how he'll sometimes sneak into a gallery at night and add in new lines, filling in these areas.
You can see Jule's immersive labyrinthine art on display at the Affordable Art Fair Hampstead in London this week until Sunday. Or visit Jules Wittock's website for more information.
