Subverting All Preconceptions of Art in Suburbia at Epicure Café

Release:

The Bunnyman Bridge Collective, a new artist collective formed in Fairfax, VA by artists Jason Davis, Jessica Kallista, and Javier Padilla, will hold an opening night reception on Saturday April 5, 2014 for their art exhibition, Tell Me Something. Over 20 works by these emerging local artists, including a live unveiling of the collective’s exquisite corpse collaborations and free art drops throughout the evening, will be on view in the recently renovated exhibition space at Epicure Café located at 11104 Lee Highway in Fairfax, VA.

Not only does The Bunnyman Bridge Collective deliver on its promise to subvert, play, experiment, and shatter the paradigms of your typical suburban art exhibit, this show sets a new standard for what it means to be an artist creating art today.

Spend an evening with the artists and learn more about the launch of this new collective Saturday, April 5, 2014 from 7pm to midnight. The band Kid Claws will provide a full night of their lush and ethereal, dreamy, noisy pop music.

• kidclawws.bandcamp.com
• facebook.com/kidclaws

While art in suburbia may be more diverse than one might imagine, Jason Davis, Jessica Kallista, and Javier Padilla found themselves frustrated by the lack of opportunities to exhibit their work locally and to find suburban art venues that featured art that resonated with their edgy, irreverent, contemporary art aesthetic, surrealist practices, and philosophy of community engagement. Encouraged by changing concepts regarding what is and what can be considered a gallery, the artists began looking for exhibition space of their own. They wanted a multipurpose creative space that not only embraced their dynamic style and manic passion to create art, but also maintained a deep emphasis on establishing creative relationships, engaging community, and nurturing collaborative play and experimentation in the arts. They wanted to change the way people thought about and interacted with art and artists in Suburbia.

The Bunnyman Bridge Collective, established in Fairfax, VA in late 2013 by Jason Davis, Jessica Kallista, and Javier Padilla, seeks to counteract the fragmented relationships between neighbours and community members who know each other only well enough to nod. The collective intends to disrupt the surrender to homogeneity of manicured lawns and living rooms decorated with art that does nothing more than match the sofa. They work to recapture missed opportunities for creative relationship, interconnectivity, and growth in order to put an end to the isolation experienced by each individual attempting to live in Suburbia. Art is a means to understand, reveal, and nurture our shared humanity.

The Bunnyman Bridge Collective envisions a more balanced Suburbia, in which art helps shape reality in a manner that:

• encourages collaboration rather than competition
• promotes cooperation, community, and togetherness
• challenges artists to consider conceptual approaches and to move beyond art that is created simply for the eye
• instigates art lovers and community members to engage in and with the new, the weird, the wild, the avant-garde, the absurd
• embraces a love of chance, experimentation, surprise, and play.

In local urban legend, the Bunnyman emerged from the wooded wilds of Fairfax in the late 1960s in full bunny suit with a hatchet to frighten those who were about to tear down and destroy what he held as sacred in order to build Suburbia.

As a symbol and a metaphor we embrace this Bunnyman and the haunted bridge in Clifton which he is known to inhabit. We take this local urban legend to the absurd extremes of play in order to reshape the reality of Suburbia and rebuild community through art.

Please join The Bunnyman Bridge Collective artists Jason Davis, Jessica Kallista, and Javier Padilla on April 5, 2014 from 7pm-12am at Epicure Café as they celebrate with an opening night reception for their art exhibition, Tell Me Something. Epicure Café is located at 11104 Lee Highway in Fairfax, VA. Music for the evening will be provided by Kid Claws. Tell Me Something will be on view at Epicure Café from April 5 through May 13.

• epicurecafe.org