About The Piece

‘Card Barred Owl’ is a piece by Zuzana Riha created in 2024 based on the North American Barred Owl. Humble pieces of cardboard are reborn into a watchful owl with its form defined by layered contours, textured edges and a deliberate geometry that evokes feathers and stillness. The choice of cardboard, a material familiar, unassuming, and often discarded, reflects her core themes of reuse, regeneration and interconnection. With this owl, Riha bridges the human-made and the wild, the mundane and the majestic, saying that all beings share this planet and all materials are worthy of respect. The quiet stillness of the owl’s pose invites the viewer to pause, to reconsider what value we place on both creatures and objects, and to sense that even cardboard can embody presence, watchfulness and reverence.

“Whooo knew cardboard could be this fun?”