THE ART OF BEING JOLLY

It is never an easy conversation with modern artist-academician Dr Jolly Koh, for whom having good ideas is of no use without coherent expression. Yet, it is rare to find a painter whose wit has been so sharpened by a collective four decades of having lived in the UK, US and Australia. VERONICA SHUNMUGAM relishes the chance to get him going on his new exhibition Jolly Koh, which is currently on show at Art Salon, and other fascinating aspects of Malaysian art.

Veronica: Congratulations on your new show, Jolly. Are all the works new?
Dr Jolly Koh: All except for one, Blue Moon, which I painted in 1978.

Besides the sculptures Isomorphic Form I and II, which works have a new element?
It’s hard for one to be objective about one’s work. Having said that, what I think are relatively new are Malaysian Landscapes I and II. I rarely work on a horizontal format and birds. The other reason these are new is because I’ve named them Malaysian Landscapes, which I did with a touch of irony and protest. These works come closest to being my “political paintings”.

Why?
Because most (local) paintings of Malaysian landscapes are of kampung scenes.

…which you did paintings of a long time ago.
Yeah, in 1955 (Purple Shadows) and 1957 (Red House). But there is nothing kampung about Malaysian Landscapes. So, I am saying to Malaysian society that if it wants to progress, it must transcend its local self and go global in the economic, sociopolitical and artistic realms.

And can I needle you with a point you made – in earlier media interviews and in your interview of famous painter-sculptor Fernando Botero – that artists shouldn’t try to change the world?
I am not trying to change the world at all. One’s artwork is an expression. So, I’ve painted Malaysian Landscapes as an expression of my values and ethos. So, it is not in any way contradictory to my views.

Well, you also did say that if at all an artist wanted to portray social change on the canvas, then he should do it through very good technique and training.
Yeah. Art is an expression of the values of the artists but it is also an expression of beauty.

What do you have to say then to young artists who

hold demonstrations, or do very jarring works of art to try and bring about social change?
They are basically protesters. In a way, they are no different from Umno Youth staging a protest at an international conference. If you or anybody else wishes to call those protesters artists, then by the same token, you should call other protesters artists and isn’t that stretching the term “artist” somewhat?

    The other point about young art – which I’ve got no problems calling art – is that you must realize that these are different art forms. I am concerned with the art form of painting.

    Those other guys that do video or installation (art) have got nothing to do with painting. If you like, you can call them all artists but doing this just blurs the distinction. It is part of one’s mental development to be able to distinguish between film and paintings as art forms. Artists who do video art – even if these works have been shown at an art gallery – should be compared to filmmakers or theatre practitioners, not painters such as myself.

Maybe the art gallery in question was trying to open the doors to a wider variety of artists?
That’s okay. But then, why not host a theatre performance or a film festival in the following months? I think this would be most unfortunate and confusing, especially for – may I say – people who are uncritical.

But some people would say that artists – such as one who recently used the medium of video for an exhibition at an art gallery – are meant to blur boundaries and break down lines that make up categories of race, religion or art?
Well, what boundaries has the artist in question blurred that other artists in the US hadn’t already blurred in the 1970s?

When you first moved back to Malaysia (from Australia under the Malaysia My Second Home programme) about two years ago, you bemoaned how young artists hardly approached a senior artist like yourself to have conversations about art. Has the situation improved since?
No. The whole environment is not conducive to that kind of thing. What I have done and am still doing is conducting my monthly painting class at

the National Art Gallery. That’s the kind of approach and dialogue I have taken. There is one young artist by the name of Ng Siew Keat who is taking my class.

Which young painters here make your grade?
By the nature of the thing, don’t expect too many good artists at any one time. In the days of Rembrandt or Van Gogh, there were hundreds of thousands of artists, but how many Rembrandts were there?

Is it especially difficult for young painters in Malaysia to develop?
My oblique answer is that a lot of young painters in this country, sad to say, decline very badly. There are a lot of bad paintings here.

What are the reasons for this?
In the last 30 years, the state of art school and paintings – not just in Malaysia – has been very bad. One of the reasons for this is that art schools don’t teach painting as a discipline anymore. So, art students go into this discovery of multimedia or filmmaking when what they should be doing is attending film school. It’s all “do your own thing” or “everything is art”.