Painted 2003-2005
This painting was produced as part of a series in the lead up to the second Iraq war, and is some of Greaves's most recent work. The series focuses on naturalistic idylls and could be considered as cathartic escapism from the anguish caused by current international affairs and as an acknowledgement of the limited ability for paintings to project such socio-political context effectively and authentically.
In From Kitchen-Sink to Shangri-La (Lund Humphries, 2007), James Hyman cites Greaves in a description of the context of the Shangri-La paintings, and more specifically the compositional elements of Shangri-La (Exotic Bird) (2003):
Shangri-La paintings were done as a protective shield against the utterly depressing news of war and the politicians games of negation.' Greaves explains elsewhere, 'I've often said that the artist preserves a thick strata of naiveté in the mind in order to take clues from wherever they come this isn't to be confused with that awful immaturity of attitudes to life which many artists irritatingly express continuously (which is merely static, inert monomania) (p.159)
Shangri-La (Tree and Sea) (2005) is a direct representation of Greaves's desire for clarity. The bold lines and vivid colours coalesce to form an abstract and representational naturalistic image. This abstract representation is achieved through a distortion of the traditional perception of such a natural edifice.