What’s a Jonze? Great question!*
Spectator Jonze is a visual artist. Jaguar Jonze is a singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Dusky Jonze is a photographer. And all three of these personas belong to Deena Lynch.
With her Spectator Jonze hat on, Deena collaborated with Felons to create Jonze Juice as the official beer of this year’s Brisbane Street Art Festival. She also lent her artistic flair to the vibrant label of Jonze Juice: in her words, “a playful world bobbing with quirky beer characters and a psychedelic, 70's sunset-inspired colour palette.”**
When I saw that Spectator Jonze’s digital paintings are about exploring people’s mental health, using bright colours and a cartoony style to bring a serious matter to an approachable medium, I interpreted the pink cartoon clouds with a range of facial expressions to mean that even though we’re all experiencing different emotions and situations to varying degrees of difficulty, there are still things that can bring us all together - like a street art festival or a tasty beer.
Then I saw the Insta post that describes them as "floating flavour dudes", so maybe I read a little too deeply into it.
But while art can be complex and intense and challenging, Jonze Juice goes easy on you. Rather than making you dig for deeper meaning, it brings all its flavour to the fore. Actually, it goes further than that: the flavour bursts out of the glass.
Cashmere and HBC586 hops bring a paint bomb of fruity flavours, with a wash of tropicals, a stroke of orange mango fruit drink (used to guzzle this stuff when I was a kid!), and a dab of berry sweetness, all over a soft cereal undercoat and light balancing bitterness. Rolled oats and wheat fill out the body while a tingly carbonation adds an extra layer of mouthfeel, like that thing painters do with their paintbrush where they poke the bristles against the paint as a finishing touch to create extra texture.
Get around town during the two weeks of BSAF for all the street art happenings you can handle, then on May 18 a closing party at Felons Barrel Hall will pump with live music, mural battles, and artists in action (including Spectator Jonze). And Jonze Juice on tap, of course.
Mick Wüst
*I say that because it’s the first question I had. I’m basically just congratulating myself here.
**Also, the lettering is raised, giving a nice bumpy, glossy feeling in contrast to the smooth matte of the label. I’m embarrassed about how much I stroked it.
Published May 8, 2024 2024-05-08 00:00:00
