Jacques Dhont

Jacques Dhont was born in the Congo in 1959 and his family moved to South Africa in 1967. He graduated with a degree in Fine Art from the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town, in 1989. Fascinated with processes of deconstruction and regeneration in nature, Jacques incorporates natural media such as woven wattle bark as well as found objects in his work. The artist also works in stone, marble and bronze. In a series of sculptures from 2000, bark figures play with a series of ‘toys’ constructed with animal bones and found wire. Some of the figures wear metal masks and sheep skin is woven into the bark to emphasize the opposition between modern and ancient cultures. Jacques’s later work demonstrates a fascination with ancient water creatures and engages with different forms of blindness: blind rage, blind love, blind justice, ambition and fear.