Times reporter views North Korean art exhibition with a distinctly British flavour

But last week the Acton-based embassy of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, better known as North Korea, was open to the public for an art exhibition.

The exhibition, spread out over two rooms, featured paintings and drawings from some of the nation’s best known painters.

The embassy is situated in a town house on busy Gunnersbury Avenue, and the only thing that sets it apart from homes surrounding it is the Korean flag flying above the driveway.

The place is packed with people, as interested in getting a look inside the secretive nation as seeing the art.

“We want to promote friendship with our kind Ealing neighbours who we love,” said one member of embassy staff who wouldn’t give his name.

“We don’t know each other. We want to know and understand each other.”

The openness seems to be the complete antithesis of the usual western perception of a country notorious for its propaganda and secretive nature.

It was well publicised in the UK that, when North Korea qualified for the 2010 World Cup, the nation’s 3-1 defeat by Brazil was re-edited to show the Koreans won.

Steven Curtis, a lecturer in diplomacy at the London Metropolitan University, had brought some of his students to the exhibition and said the opportunity to glimpse inside the authoritarian state was something he couldn’t turn down.

He said: “Public diplomacy like this is something that is really rising. North Korea are just going with that trend.

“It’s a low-risk gesture on their part that can do no harm to local relationships.”

Student Alexia Augeri, who studies international relations and law at London Met, said: “It is strange this is so open. For once, you can get a glimpse into what the country might be like.”

The grinning portraits of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il watch over us as we mill around looking at the collection. Many of the paintings seem to be in a specific Asian style that brings to mind similar work from Japan and China.

The Soviet-style landscapes of toiling workers, happy to work for their socialist motherland, are lacking and the style is much more mild-mannered.

Some of it is strikingly familiar. One piece, painted by Hong Song Il, showcases the now-famous Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red attraction currently at the Tower of London.

He tells me: “It was the second day of my arrival in London and I visited the Tower of London not expecting to see the poppies there. Someone explained to me the significance of it and I thought this showed the strong aspirations of British people for peace not war.”

His aim had been to capture something of life in London for people in Korea, who, he says, think of “rain and people rushing around” when they think of London.

Another of his pieces shows two smiling and laughing girls sitting on the Embankment by the Thames. He told me this piece was called The Bright Smile by the Thames.

Mr Hong is experienced in these art exhibitions, having toured his artwork previously in China, but is visiting the UK for the first time.

The whole event has given me a different view on a country I thought was a closed book, but it’s clear some subjects remain off the table.

I’d heard a rumour that Mr Hong had been commissioned to create a portrait of current Korean leader, Kim Jong Un. I decide to try my luck and ask him about it.

“He has drawn Kim Jong Un a number of times,” his translator tells me.

But has he met him? The answer: “As a professional painter I love my job and want to bring joy to people with my paintings.”

Some things may not be quite as open book as they seem.