watertown TENNESSEE

suckerPUNCH: Describe your project.
Jason BRIGGS: Though my objects contain strong visual references, I am more interested in the implied tactile ones; the things that stir in me a compulsion to touch…

“The French say that the best part of an affair is going up the stairs. Desire is almost always more thrilling than fulfillment.”

-Tom Robbins

At 8 years old I saw my first playboy spread. The nature of that experience- pure, primal, and singular - remains a catalyst. These were clearly magazine photos - flat images on semi gloss stock - but my instinctive response was to embrace the nude; I held her page to my chest in a delisional bear hug. My Imagination went haywire.

On one level, these pieces are part of an ongoing effort to document and expand upon that adolescent moment. Though my objects contain strong visual references, I am more interested in the implied tactile ones; the things that stir in me a compulsion to touch. While manipulating porcelian, I recognize, and act upon, a profound desire to push, poke,squeeze, stroke, caress and pinch. I intend for my pieces to invoke a similar sort of temptation: to dare the viewer to touch.

Or better yet, to imagine touching.

sP: What or who influenced this project?
JB: This body of work has been evolving for around 20 years, slowly. I don’t see it as a matter of outside influences, instead the earlier work in the series has become the influence for the current work. aside from that, I will say that instead of acknowledging visual influences, I am more interested in “tactile” ones; the things I see that create a powerful urge to Touch. I pay attention to those impulses, study them, and try to achieve a similar temptation with my work.

sP: Whose work is currently on your radar?
JB: A few artists whose work i love, and make me envious: Juz Kitson, David Henry Brown, Jr., and Andrew Casto