작품 상세

The flamboyance of the Flame of the Forest (Butea Monosperma), like the purplish jackaranda, offers not only refuge from its foliage, but a riot of bright colours when it blooms luxuriantly in orangey red in certain months. The ground will also be an ornamental carpet from the dropped beak-shaped keel petals. It's a sight to behold while it lasts. Jolly Koh captures its vivacity, simulating movements with pointillist renditions as if the flowers are floating in the air. The mimetic in Art of Nature sometimes treads a thin line. As Piet Mondrian put it (1938): "Art has to be forgotten: Beauty must be realised." The Flame of the Forest bloom is revered by the Hindus and is a sign of Myanmar's Thingyan Festival, which falls in April. Jolly Koh is best remembered for the major survey exhibition, Jolly Koh@76 (White Box, Publika), in 2017, organised by Henry Butcher Art Auctioneers, which was accompanied with an impressive book chronicling 60 years of paintings. Artist, academician, scholar and pontificator. Education: NDD (national diploma in design) at Hornsey, London, and a teacher's certificate at London University; Fulbright scholarship at Indiana University, in the United States, for Doctor of Education and Master of Science (also a teaching associate). Teaching: Mara Institute of Technology; Sabah's Gaya College; Art in Melbourne and Adelaide; MSC College (SeGi College). In the legendary Magnificent 7 GRUP exhibition, Kuala Lumpur, in 1967.