“Cartoon Called Life” by Juraj Straka : "BUNNY IN PARIS"

Since its opening, Alfalibra Gallery has supported the association of art and fashion, as well as the different “lifestyles”; the most varied sources of inspiration and the LGBTQ+ artistic world. Thus we identify all these values to our new exhibition “Bunny in Paris”, the second solo show of CARTOON CALLED LIFE, a unique universe created by Juraj Straka.

In 2013, the CARTOON CALLED LIFE adventure begins as an antidote to the stress of the fashion world, which Juraj has been part of since 2007. He creates a comic featuring a little rabbit named “Bunny”; gay and white, in a humorous and colorful universe.

Juraj’s work is strongly influenced by his life-lasting job as a textile designer. In his work he uses bright colors, floral and geometric forms to create eye-pleasing pieces, which often balance on the edge of decoration and textile design. The aim is to evoke a positive feeling in spectator’s mind, either evoked by a joke, a smiling face of Bunny or by a bright color spectrum. In most pieces we can find repeating attributes of Bunny’s world - pizzas, coffee mugs, stars, icosahedrons, circles and last but not least, “beardiful” men.

This exhibition shows the wide range of Juraj’s creations from paintings mixed with embroidery, silkscreened posters, and original drawings. He fell in love with the screen-printing technique already during his school years at Academy of fine arts in Bratislava, where he uses both on fabric and for his posters with bright and vibrant colors. He also immerses us in his world and his way of observing, through transparent colored filters. This technique, present on his original drawings, is a legacy of one of his art teachers that helps the artist see in a composition all imperfections that one wouldn’t spot by looking at it with a regularwhite paper. 

In over 6 years, Juraj has created more than 1,500 cartoons, which have been published online, on a clothing collection and in the form of two art books: “Cartoon Called Life” in 2017 and “Bunny’s New Adventures “in October 2019. CARTOON CALLED LIFE, which started as a fun project, quickly became a successful networking event and a very popular comic with a growing community (36,000 followers on Instagram @ cartoon.called.life).

CARTOON CALLED LIFE is active in the LGBT scene, for 3 years now as a proud partner of Antwerp Pride, does art collaboration with other gay artists, and supports and co-hosts international LGBT events.