The Owl

Animals have found considerable space on Shuvaprasanna’s canvas, not as wild creatures of the forest but rather as co-inhabitants of Kolkata, the theatre of all his artistic experiments. In this oil, Shuvaprasanna paints an owl, whose sighting is considered auspicious as it is associated with Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth. However, it’s not the divinely white owl that accompanies the goddess, but a rather sinister-looking cousin with green eyes rising above the city ominously. The sombre palette is as an allegory for the unrest that the city suffered in the Sixties and Seventies, issues that found reflection in Shuvaprasanna’s canvas through varied metaphors.