#80 - Deena IX: Waking The Tiger
Spectator Jonze
- Sitter: Spectator Jonze (Deena Lynch)
- Medium: Digital Art
- Dimensions: 85 x 60 cm
- Representation: The artist represents themselves
- Category: Sylvia Jones Prize for Women Artists, Accenture Digital Award, Performing Arts and Music Award
About the artwork
Deenya Lynch has had C-PTSD for over 20 years and this self-portrait represents how she has changed my survival strategy. She says, “I have gone from thinking of my PTSD episodes as the frozen bunny, who is terrified, freezes or hides away when attacked to seeing myself as the tiger. The tiger doesn’t hide, it asserts itself and takes situations head on.”
About the sitter
Deena Lynch is a Brisbane-based artist with projects Jaguar Jonze (music), Spectator Jonze (art) and Dusky Jonze (photography). In 2020, she collaborated with BMW Australia to design their first Art Car, performed as a finalist on Eurovision: Australia Decides and received a Queensland Music Award in the Singer/Songwriter category. The rest of her 2020 turned upside down as she battled COVID-19 in another city away from home but continued to create art and music.
About the artist
Spectator Jonze is the moniker of Deena Lynch, a young Brisbane artist who works in music and the visual arts. Lynch was born in Yokohama, Japan. She migrated to Australia as a child under less than certain circumstances and had a difficult childhood, which later played out in her work. Lynch uses art and music as an outlet of expression, and has won a number of awards. Each of her projects has its unique identities, but share a common thread of confronting shame and taboos. Explains Lynch: “Everything I do stems from the need for dialogue – Jaguar being an internal dialogue with my subconscious, Spectator being an external dialogue with others on mental health and the mind and Dusky being a dialogue with the body.” In their own way, each is a collaboration, be it literal or metaphoric. Her mission is simple: “I want people to feel. And I want them to think,” she says.
“I’ve had PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) for over 20 years and this self-portrait represents how I’ve changed my survival strategy. ”
Behind the scenes
I’ve had PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) for over 20 years and this self-portrait represents how I’ve changed my survival strategy.
People often talk about two survival strategies – fight or flight, but we don’t talk enough about the third strategy: ‘freeze’. It was not until I read an amazing book on PTSD and trauma called Waking the Tiger where I realized that ‘freezing’ was a survival strategy I had used my whole life.
Since becoming aware, I have used art to slowly heal my trauma, change my way of coping with the abuse I had tolerated as a child and to facilitate a conversation with the most important person to be honest with – myself.
