Home Artworks Jack and Jill (Police Kids)

Jack and Jill (Police Kids)

2005

Signed

Default

50 x 70 cm
20 x 27.56 in

Year

2005

Medium

Prints

Reference

f89497df

Screenprint in colours, 2005, numbered edition 21/350, on wove paper, printed and published by Pictures on

Walls, London, with their blindstamp at lower left, with full margins, sheet 50 x 70 cm.

 

Jack and Jill, named after a traditional English nursery rhyme, also referred to as Police Kids, was released as a limited edition of 350 prints in 2005. Unlike most of Banksy’s works, Jack and Jill was never painted in the street and came only as a screen print. The work combines Banksy’s classic spray-paint and stencilling techniques with humour and a sense of ironic social commentary on today’s society.
Painted on a blocked sky blue background Jack and Jill portrays two children running gleefully through water and towards the viewer. Both characters are dressed for summer, bare legs and arms, and they have smiles on their faces. The young girl is holding a basket of flowers and at first glance it seems as if both run together in what appears to be a beautiful sunny afternoon in the countryside, carefree and innocent. Except that the two children are wearing bulletproof vest with the word ‘Police’ written in capital letters across their chests. Banksy uses children in bulletproof police vests to contrast the supposed freedom and innocence of childhood, commenting on the way law enforcement is restricting people’s freedom.

, United Kingdom

Banksy was born in 1974, in England. He is a graffiti artist from Bristol, who is famous for his artworks, widespread all over the world. Despite his success, nobody knows his real name, due to the artist’s will to carefully keep his real name from the mainstream media. He is known for his original technique, which allows to distinguish his artworks immediately. In particular, he uses a combination with a distinctive stencilling technique, in order to promote alternative aspects of politics.                                                                                                     There are different opinions about his work: someone believe that his works improve the quality of the urban environment where they are placed, giving a voice to the people who cannot express themselves; others think that his work is an example of vandalism or that his political beliefs (apparently left wing) are not shared by the majority of the inhabitants of the environments that he decorate. However, thanks to the secrecy around his real identity and his subversive character, Banksy has achieved somewhat of a cult following from some of the younger age group within the stencilling community.


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Tanya Baxter contemporary, based in London and Hong Kong, is a leading art advisory and gallery with nearly twenty-five years’ experience working in the Post-Modern, Modern British and Contemporary art market. The London Gallery, established in 1998, is situated in Chelsea. The Art Advisory office in Hong Kong is based in the up and coming Wong Chuk Hang D...

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