AGAC 2024 Top 25 Finalist - Jaz (Gareth) Jacob Zacks - The Dogs Are Barking

Art has always been a vital outlet for me - since I was young, colour has been my safe space, and movement and expression characterised me.

I'm Jaz Zacks, a matric student from Cape Town studying abroad at an International High School (United World Colleges) in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

In Grade 10, I was at Westerford High School in Cape Town; I was awarded Academic Excellence and Top Student for both Visual Arts and isiXhosa SAL. Habitat for Humanity was a committee that I chaired for two years, where I coordinated numerous community outreach projects with a sustainable focus. I also danced and performed in the successful High School 'District Six' musical production and performed in CTCB 'The Nutcracker' at Artscape. 

During my ballet training years, I received a High Merit for the Intermediate Ballet Exam through the Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) and a Gold Diploma at the Cape Town Eisteddfod for Ballet dance performance.

At the start of Grade 11, I was given a full scholarship, The Nelson Mandela Scholarship, to continue my High School studies as a South African representative at UWC Mostar, and a whole new chapter began for me.

Nowadays, I do a variety of extra-murals from Ballet (pointe work too), Contemporary dance, and Aerial Silking, as well as co-ordinate 'Life-Drawing classes' at UWC, and I love to experiment with varying mediums in my sketchbook whenever possible - at galleries, on mountain tops, in forests. I use Art as a form of self-expression, and every artwork I create contains my full passion and love. 

At UWC, I continue to work on community projects, organising various events like ‘Bald for a Cause’ which was for children's cancer awareness – where students go bald to donate their hair. Furthermore, I used my passion for art for positive change with a team of students by painting a special needs kindergarten’s playground walls, filled with colour, rainbows and flowers to bring a smile to their faces. 

At the moment, I aim to pursue medicine as an area of study, as I am fascinated by sciences and the human body, but Art will always be my therapy, my expression... Me. I hope that these artworks, 'The Dogs Are Barking’ and 'Stormy Oranjezicht' cultivate the unique yet plural experience of being South African, our identity struggles, yet love for the colours of our diversity. My passion for South Africa and Cape Town still broods deep within, it is my home. I hope to continue creating Artwork throughout my life to continue representing my genderqueer and intersectional perspective.

American Artist - Keith Haring (1958-1990) created graphic works of Art, commenting on various social issues: AIDS, violence and oppression (queer and racial). In my piece, I engage in Haring’s iconic graphic barking dogs, connecting it to South African culture using coloured Shweshwe fabrics. I also included African beads and buttons as accent details.

This work, like Haring, also comments on the ‘scars of our times’. In South Africa, the youth of today struggle with many Mental health concerns. We live in a complex, polarised world that leaves us with very little ‘breathing space’. Anxiety, depression, and inner identity turmoil are a few mental health issues in South Africa and everywhere. In my work, I have drawn a self-portrait in anguish and pain with the barking dogs reflecting on this internal conflict of emotions, attacking from various sides, adding barking noises to the state of Anxiety. These barking creatures emphasise the oppressive society that many young queer people face within our country, being reduced to heteronormativity - emphasised by the black-and-white depiction of the portrait.