In 1955 a young boy of 15 would look forward to his trips to Malacca town each month to pick up his copy of The Artist magazine. He would sit in on the many debates and discussions among the older youths. He would watch them paint their watercolours and be similarly inspired.

Today, that boy has grown up to become one of the doyens of the local art scene, with international recognition under his belt. Remarkably, his early watercolours have survived intact, hanging in an exhibition a XOAS Gallery in Petaling jaya, looking like they had just been done yesterday.

Except, of course, the literal works – of idyllic kampung scenes – look worlds removed from the sophisticated abstraction of the oil painting that have come later. And even after 50 years, Jolly Koh has not stopped evolving.

"A painter doesn't retire," he says, looking somewhat puzzled, and perhaps a tad annoyed. He had been asked what motivates him to continue to push the envelope when some people's output tend to plateau and taper off after some time, as if a goal had been met and there was nothing more to look forward to. (Later in the

interview he would muse about young artists who make a splash early in their careers simply because what they had to say was new, but then fizzled out within three years because everyone discovered they had nothing to say beyond that.)

Koh relates the memory of his early days – of watching the future Senator, Tan Sri Aziz Tapa, doing his watercolours – and it sounds like they are still fresh in his mind. It makes it seem somewhat ironic that, given his humble beginnings, he should now hold such an elitist view of the arts.

"There are many forms of the arts, but we are talking here about the high arts, fine art. And the higher arts will never relate to the masses. It will always be the domain of the artistic elite," he states, : and I make no apologies for this whatsoever."

But, you ask, hadn't he mentioned in another interview that there is too much intellectualizing going on in the arts? That art should be about passion and emotion? Since emotion is something that even the average person is capable of, wouldn't this mean that just about anyone can "get" arts?

"What you can do is to increase the circle of the artistic elite. But to do more… let me explain. There are two paintings here called A Private Sunday. I had been painting them on a Saturday night and on sunday I came out to join the real world, out local world, I looked around me at food stalls, and I realized that what I had been working on is so removed from their lives. There are two worlds, totally different. That's why I decided to call these pieces Private Sunday: it's about my private world, the fine art world."

In yet another interview he had posed a rhetorical question: what is painting about, and what is it for? His response – that it should always be about aesthetic beauty and the enjoyment of beauty – must then be

tempered with this new revelation: that to fully enjoy that beauty, one needs to be brained.

In a way, this should not be such a disturbing notion to the proletariat. Many of the finer things in life – sushi, classical music, fine wine, a good cigar – similarly require some form of training, albeit informal, to hone the senses to appreciate the subtle differences inherent within each piece.

"The high art requires a lot of study; requires fine capabilities, fine thinking. A lot of mental sophistication. That's not easy, and it's not for everybody," he explains. "There is art for the people; in the old days it's called folk art. That is so simple, so undemanding, anyone can do it. But high art requires years of study before someone can produce it, and it requires a level of sophistication to appreciate it."

He contends that the other main reason why art is removed from the Malaysian person in the street is because of the lack of infrastructure. " Fine arts require a network, it's not an isolated thing. You have to look at the whole infrastructure. Consider a child who grows up in Bahau, Negri Sembilan, or Batu Pahat, Johor. What opportunities are there for his or her development in the arts? The infrastructure is just not there."

Again, this seems to contradict his own experiences growing up in Malacca in the 1950s, when you would imagine a similar lack of supporting network. Give his reasoning above, surely he would not have evolved into the Jolly Koh that he it today? But Koh is quick to dispel the idea. For the necessary infrastructure, he says, though highly informal, was indeed there.

He would be the first to acknowledge that it is easy to romanticize the past ("Many people today talk about going back to the good old days but, you know, it wasn't as good as they think it was.") Fully knowing this, he still believes that the arts scene was better " in those days" compared to now.

He is reluctant to say if the scene has actually degraded, but his opinion is that it has stagnated. And the reason for that, he believes, is the infrastructure to create new artists is either lacking, or they are supporting the wrong things.

"Imagine, in those days you can buy a copy of The Artist in a bookshop in Malacca. Even in such a small place there was an active arts scene. There were a handful of pretty good watercolourists 10, 15 years older that me, and they created this network of artists who supported the development of art in that place. It was like a small art community."

It helps that those were the days when art was still very much part of the country, when politicians and other leading figures were regulars at art exhibitions. A time when people like Tunku Abdul Rahman and Tan Sri Ghazali Shafie would mingle with the other patrons.

Koh says we need to return to that era when leaders were genuinely interested in the arts: "When the leaders take an interest in the arts, the others will follow."

But he laments that art in the political space has come useful for only two things: tourism and the promotion of a national identity. It turns out that his main contention vis–a–vis the over- intellectualizing of art is that it has give way to content over form – that the content dictates the form from the outset.

"The good artist should be more conscious of the quality of his art than to be too conscious of the content which the other side tends to put in. When national identity tends to be conscious of the content, the art suffers," he wrote in a recent article.

To be sure, Koh is not merely an artist, but an art intellectual. With a Fulbright scholarship, he obtained first a Masters in art Education degree from Indiana University in the US, and then a Doctorate in Philosophy of Education. He is as much concerned with the issues surrounding the development of art he is with creating it.

To this end he was has penned several articles and gives talks on a regular basis. Some of his intellectual output has been captured in a book, Artistic Imperatives, which turns out to be a good read.

Certainly, Koh has wisdom to impart, although perhaps his passion also makes him sometimes a little impatient. His biting criticisms may make him come across as arrogant, but it is not without reason. He has absolutely no patience for the liberalization or democratisation of the art scene that has been in vogue, unchallenged, in Malaysia for the past 20 years.

"Democratisation is not the same as democracy. Democracy says everyone has equal rights, but it doesn't say everyone has equal talent," he states, in a classic Jolly Koh statement which may translate into haughtiness on the printed page.

"Real talent is something you are you born with. You either have it or you don't. There are people who say that no one can determine if a work is good or bad, that it is all in the eye of the beholder. I think people who say that are those who have little talent, so they are actually trying to defend themselves. We talented people are the ones who will say a work is bad when it is bad. But you have to justify it, of course."

Which makes it hard for him to fill the role of guru to the new generation. Not that he sees himself consciously taking on that mantle, in the first place. He does not see himself as an elder statesman of the local arts scene, he says, but he wouldn't mind mentoring young artists. But what he has found is that some young artists are too arrogant for their own good.

I have five, maybe six, young artists that I work with. But there are many others I have come across who think they don't need guidance.

His reputation for calling a spade a spade would probably make it daunting for some emerging talent to approach him, anyway. That remark elicits a sly grin from Koh. He will not compromise, yet his passion for grooming younger artists is palpable.

The idea of beauty being paramount in works of art is further explained by Koh in that article, titled Notes to a young Artist and Some Others Here and There. But his is not beauty in shallow sense.

An answer of sorts can be found in his advice to the young artist: "My advice to the young artist is this: remember that you are an artist first and foremost – a person with passion for his art – a creator of beauty that celebrates life and living. I use the word 'beauty' deliberately… The word 'beauty' should be broadly conceived. In this broad sense, he concept of beauty is exemplified in a variety of works, from Bach to Bartok, and from Mu-Ch'I (Fa Ch'aang) to be Kooning.

Thus, his "beauty" is a thing with many layers, which becomes even more delightful as you dig deeper and discover that there is more than meets the eye. Very much like the classical music that he is passionate about, where you can hear a piece for many years and still discover new things about it.

Artistic Imperatives by Jolly Koh (RM80) is published by Maya Press and is available at XOAS Gallery 76G Jalan Universiti, Tel: 03-79550601