Art ... it doesn't immediately spring to mind when thinking about the repressive regime of North Korea. Famine, nuclear weapons and the Dear Leader's penchant for perms, aviator shades and 1970s jumpsuits maybe.

So it was a most welcome surprise to stumble across a tiny art gallery-cum-curio shop dedicated to all things North Korean on a shady, tree-lined street in eastern Beijing.

The man behind the gallery, Briton Nick Bonner, has been taking foreigners north of the 38th parallel for the past 11 years through his Beijing-based tour company, Koryo Tours. In the process, he has built an extensive collection of North Korean art.

``Most people have these fixed ideas about North Korea - they think it's full of these automaton-like people. But they come away entranced. Everyone who goes says it's the most amazing trip of their life. And the North Koreans love it. They love the fresh input, the new ideas, new faces,'' says Bonner.

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) sees art and intellect as integral to its strict Marxist philosophy of self-reliance, believing people's art is as important, in its own way, as building up a weapons arsenal and maintaining a million-man army.

In addition to the national gallery in Pyongyang, to which every artist aspires, there are three or four well-known art studios, a few smaller galleries in every province and a military art studio, according to Bonner.

And to allay any further doubts about their commitment to culture, a gargantuan 11.6-metre monument depicts the three pillars of socialism, DPRK-style - the hammer, sickle and calligraphy brush - in downtown Pyongyang. The three are also on the national flag and most emblems.

Not all of the works hanging in Bonner's Pyongyang Art Studio are what North Koreans would consider art. The hand-painted film posters and thematic socialist-realist propaganda are as everyday for North Koreans as mobile phone ads are for Hong Kongers.

``No one in North Korea would hang this on their walls,'' Bonner says, pointing to a massive, brightly coloured painting of a beaming, ruddy-faced worker astride a tractor ploughing golden fields of wheat.

``These are just for foreigners; just for fun. It's almost like pop art.''

But for the up-and-coming artist whose painting is selected to accompany the latest political slogan - be it an anti-American diatribe or a call to plant more pumpkin seeds - winning such a competition not only translates into improved status, but is also a chance to show some real work.

``North Korean artists express themselves for the benefit of the nation and to inspire people. But they're just like artists the world over, they paint because they have to, because they are artists, and because they want their work to be seen,'' says Bonner, himself an artist and landscape architect.

And, like most artists, North Koreans turn to what inspires them. So when they're not painting the rosy, unblemished face of their country's founder and Great Leader, the late Kim Il Sung, or his son, the Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il, they turn to that other standby: Nature.

Half of the gallery is filled with landscapes - watercolours, brush stroke, wood-block prints and silk tapestries - depicting romantic scenes of wild ducks in flight against a moonlit sky, a lonely pagoda on a carpet of burnt orange leaves or misty mountainscapes.

``Every [North Korean] artist at some time in their life paints two mountains,'' Bonner explains. They are Mount Paekdu, which represents the birthplace of the Korean revolution, and Mount Kumgangsan, which straddles North and South Korea and has become a symbol both of the divide and the need for reunification.

``Don't they ever get bored of painting landscapes?'' I ask.

``One old artist told me, `you can never master nature and there is no subject matter more enthralling and more painful to capture on a piece of cloth: The smell, light, taste, history and colour,''' Bonner replies.

The idea of man conquering nature is central to the Juche philosophy that governs life in the DPRK. It celebrates man's ability to carve out his own destiny, to create his own country with complete independence and to take orders from no one. It embraces self-reliance in ideological thought, economic prowess and defence, and is so extreme that it is undoubtedly why North Korea remains one of the world's most isolated states.

But unlike other stifled regimes, such as Burma, where artists are crying out for outside influence and inspiration, North Korean artists seem content to evolve within their own boundaries.

``Traditional Korean art is more Confucian. [It's about] control, limiting what you do to represent the same,'' Bonner says, noting the more abstract work of 58-year-old Son U Yong.

``He is superb; with bold, unconventional colour choice and so abstract. He often paints in simplified blocks, so if you blur your eyes you end up with a very simple containment of one dominant colour.

``It's absolutely ethereal work and if you have been to the sites that he paints then he certainly captures the spirit of those places, the landscape and myth associated with them.''

But in a country more associated with human rights abuses, deprivation and starvation, it's almost perverse to hear Bonner talk about artistic freedom.

``You only need to look at the architecture - it's wild to see how much freedom they do have,'' Bonner insists, flipping through one of the gallery's many North Korean-published picture books, showing photos of buildings shaped like eyes, conical hats, the Arc-de-Triomphe and the piece-de-resistance, a 105-storey pyramid-shaped hotel currently under construction. The country also boasts the world's largest stadium named, the May Day Stadium, capable of seating 150,000.

``Design-wise their skill is unbeatable. No one can match them in mosaic and sculpture. They have to be some of the best craftsmen in the world,'' he says.

But this is North Korea, so of course there are guidelines.

``It has to be inspiring, it has to show progress and there is the army-first policy. Plus, they are limited by what they can do with the concrete and steel materials.''

Bonner may be a North Korean enthusiast, but he is not blind to the difficulties faced by the average citizen. Yet he maintains that to isolate the country is to seal its fate and that engagement through responsible tourism can have a massive impact.

Not only has Bonner's own version of a sunshine policy resulted in Koryo Tours being allowed unprecedented access into homes and formerly off-limits parts of the country, it also brought to light the extraordinary story of the North Korean football team who stunned the world when they knocked favourites Italy out of the 1966 World Cup in England.

After six years of lobbying, Bonner and fervent football fan Daniel Gordon were given permission by Pyongyang to film a documentary about the team. It had been widely alleged that the players were disgraced and banished after they lost in the quarter-finals to Portugal, supposedly after consorting with evil English temptresses. But the film, The Game of Their Lives, dispelled those stories and found the side was still celebrated for their heroics.

Released in 2002 and shown in both North and South Korea, the documentary won an award for Best Sports Documentary from the Royal Television Society in May 2003.

Last year, the surviving players returned to the stadium in Middlesbrough, north England, where 40 years ago they played their giant-killer game, for another standing ovation from tens of thousands of fans.

Bonner says that North Koreans still approach him in the street and thank him for taking such good care of the side when they were in the United Kingdom.

Bonner and Gordon's latest documentary, A State of Mind, is about two teenage gymnasts in the run-up to the 2005 Mass Games, an elaborately choreographed event celebrating Communism, with 100,000 gymnasts, dancers and other performers. The film follows two girls' gruelling preparations, again providing rare insight into the lives of ordinary people in North Korea.

A third documentary about an American defector to North Korea is in the offing.

If Bonner is right, where strong-arm diplomacy has failed, art and football may succeed in starting dialogue with the North Koreans. Perhaps the world should take note. After all, China's opening to the outside world began with ping-pong diplomacy.

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