This painting was produced as part of a series in the lead up to the second Iraq war. 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. This escapism is achieved through using colour and form to create an abstract and representational portrayal of two exotic birds in an aesthetically appealing image.

 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)'

In... Shangri-La (Two Exotic Birds) (2002), there is an enjoyment in the flow of line as well as precision... An extended line from top to bottom helps create a space in which the artist places a circle; at once representational and abstract, the lines trace the beak, neck and eye of a bird as well as being quite simply two lines and a circle. (pp.159 - 160)