In their reworked illustrations from colouring books Jake and Dinos Chapman deliberately play off childhood innocence against the macabre and the sinister. Commissioned exclusively by Counter Editions 'I do not recall distinctly when it began, but it was months ago (I)' (2010) illustrates an imagined moment in the mind of a child. The idyllic image of a little boy and a fluffy bunny is subsumed into a nightmarish vision of decaying corpses and lurking monsters. The bunny stands blissfully unaware of the gruesome one-eyed beast hovering over its shoulder, whilst a pair of eyes stares maniacally from a decomposing skull, drawing us deeper into the horror.
Jake & Dinos Chapman make iconoclastic sculpture, prints and installations that examine, with searing wit and energy, contemporary politics, religion and morality. They interrogate what we value as art, questioning the widely held view that the purpose of art is to be morally redemptive or socially edifying. They ask us to consider what we see as good or bad art - whether "bad" art really is made by or for bad people - and to probe the assumptions that underlie established aesthetic criteria. They frequently employ subversive strategies through which they question the role of the artist and the complicity of the viewing audience.