The enigmatic yet introspective indie rocker Jaguar Jonze (aka Deena Lynch) shares the ethereal-pop track “Beijing Baby,” a melancholic beauty woven with gun-slinging guitar lines and smoky vocals.
Working with a team of fellow Australians, director Ben Gerbanas and costume designer Cindy Vogels, the official music video exemplifies the audio, visual and performance art that informs every aspect of Lynch’s creative expression. Jaguar Jonze and its adjacent projects, the narrative illustration project Spectator Jonze and the gender-subverting photography project Dusky Jonze, are powerful ways in which Deena processes her most intimate vulnerabilities while empowering others to do the same.
Through Spectator Jonze, Deena uses bold pop art that dabbles in surrealism to destigmatize mental-health issues by interviewing her subjects before drawing them. Deena’s 50th portrait, a year into the project, confronted her own PTSD stemming from her unstable, unsafe childhood. “I realized when I stepped out of hiding, I could actually move forward, feel less isolated. I want other people to unburden themselves from the wasted extra energy spent pretending and hiding.”