Tucked away along a quiet street in east Beijing, the recently-opened Pyongyang Art Studio is a modest, one-room exhibit that tries to enlighten visitors, if not wow them with the North Korean people's artistic side.

"I really hate Korean people being told 'you're warmongerers'. These are very bright, incredibly proud people and I think their art shows this," said gallery owner Nick Bonner.

The gallery, which opened last month, is believed to be the first permanent one devoted to North Korean art and one of the few places where North Korean artists can display their mostly watercolour works outside the Stalinist state.

Almost split in half, one side of the gallery exhibits gigantic, brightly colored posters and paintings showing ruddy-cheeked, beaming workers meticulously operating heavy machinery or farmers happily driving a tractor in a field of bright yellow hay stacks.

This is the closed-off country's propaganda art, said Bonner, who buys the paintings in the North then sells them for profit in Beijing, mostly to tourists and for up to 1,000 dollars.

It is the kind of work artists are commissioned by the government to make -- to instill pride, patriotism and unity in the motherland.

On the other side of the gallery hang paintings with gentler colors depicting scenes of trees turning yellow in the autumn, or silk embroidered luxurious peacocks and towering mountains with rushing waterfalls.

"That's what Koreans consider art," said Bonner, who says his business has the approval of the Pyongyang regime.

"They would put up a poster of Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il, but not propaganda art at home. They would put up this other art, landscape art."

Before the 1950-1953 Korean War, idealistic artists believing they would be free from foreign influence went North. While some fled to South Korea later, others stayed.

The artists in the North never stopped developing their skills despite the repressive political climate.

Traditional Korean art on the surface resembles Chinese landscape art -- with a focus on perfecting a style or technique rather than changing it, but Korean paintings take a less monochrome approach.

"They've always had their own style," said Bonner, who is one of the few Westerners with regular access to the country's culture and people, courtesy of his Beijing-based tour company that has been taking visitors to North Korea for more than a decade.

Landscapes are not political so artists are allowed to continue painting despite being in a politically controlled society where no one can suggest any hint of challenging the regime or showing dissent, even through art.

The government recognizes the power of art in inspiring the masses and commissioned landscape paintings that have a political theme, Bonner said.

One painting in the gallery shows a fearsome yet paternalistic-looking tiger watching over Mount Paekdu, considered the birthplace of the Korean people.

"The tiger must be Kim Il-Sung," Bonner said, referring to the powerful late leader and father of current North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il.

Ironically, Bonner said, in times of relative peace with the United States, artists focus on painting landscapes, not political paintings.

Under tense moods, such as the nearly two-year US-led push to pressure the North to abandon its nuclear weapons program, artwork takes a strong political tone.

Bonner argues the outside world is as much to blame for hindering North Korean culture as domestic politics.

"A lot of their art now is anti-American and about being a strong country. Until they don't feel the threat from America, it'll stay this way," Bonner said.

"Who's responsible for putting a stop on art, I say it's pressure from outside."

Anti-American works include paintings showing American soldiers wearing scowls burning crop fields.

Though far from being well-known abroad, painters such as Song U-Yong and the late Jong Yong-Man are household names in North Korea.

"People say they haven't been allowed to develop there. I say rubbish," Bonner said. "If you want to talk about sexual tensions... yin/yang... whatever you want to put into it, it's there"

He was pointing at Jong's painting of the Kumgang Mountains -- an almost abstract rendition of the famed peaks in which he veers from tradition and uses dark colors for the sky and strong bold strokes for the slopes.

"If he had been known in South Korea or China, people would all know him. There would be books on him," said Bonner.

But even the North's big name artists have difficulties selling their paintings.

It's almost impossible to leave the country and with strained relations between the North and many other nations, the artists cannot dream of having their own exhibits.

They sell some commissioned works to other countries, including African nations, but other than that, rely on middleman like Bonner.

South Koreans also are beginning to snap up some of the works on tours to China's border areas with the North, said Yang Huibang, a travel agent.

"These works will have collectors' value," said Yang. "South Koreans really like it because they're all one race. They make their own paintings, but they can't paint the mountains in North Korea. It's two countries."

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