Art is evolutional, a creative extension of the mind that grows and adapts as the artist does.

Jason Briggs, a visiting artist in ceramics, will lecture today at 6 p.m. in Van Allen Lecture Room 2, where he will discuss his path from his first interest in ceramics to his current work. During his stay in Iowa City, he will give two demonstrations, as well as individual meetings, specifically for ceramics students.

His lecture will consist of a 30-minute PowerPoint presentation followed by questions from the audience. He will show images that first piqued his interest in ceramics as well as his influences with an underlying theme of progression. The lecture is targeted at UI students of ceramics, but nonartists will be able to glean a perspective of art from the lecture as well.

“The best comments on work have come from people who have just stumbled in [to my lectures],” Briggs said.

His art combines abstract concepts with the mind’s impulse to touch. His work frequently includes sexual references through intricate surface details that cause viewers to long to touch his artwork.

Other techniques he uses are based on the concept and balance of beauty and hideousness by involving visual references that are recognizable, but distorted. If a piece of artwork was just about beauty, it would be easier to understand and it would not stick with a viewer, Briggs said.

The ceramic art that Briggs creates combines the abstract with impulses of the mind to invoke the desire of touch. He often includes sexual references of attention to surface to invoke a longing of touch that matches the power of it. To hold the viewer’s eye, he balances the concept of beauty and hideousness by involving visual references that are recognizable but unknown. If a piece of artwork was just about beauty, it would be easier to understand and it would not stick with a viewer, Briggs said.

“I hope to engage a viewer for longer than just a few seconds by making objects that are foreign but still familiar to make the viewer intrigued,” he said.

His aspiration is to create artwork from a fresh perspective to form objects he has never seen before. His aim is to form art that vaguely and secretly insists upon contact with the viewer.

This will be one of many trips Briggs has taken to Iowa City. His first visit was more than 10 years ago for a workshop in 1994, and he instantly fell in love with the city and was almost tempted to attend graduate school at the UI in 1996.

“I love [Iowa] City; I love the size,” Briggs said. “It has everything I like about a college town.”

His work in ceramics is globally known by being showcased in places such as the World Ceramics Center in Ichon, South Korea, and the Ceramics Research Center in Tempe, Ariz. Although his work is known on an international level, Briggs enjoys traveling across the U.S. to do approximately three workshops per school semester.