Dragons feature periodically in Jolly Koh’s art repertoire, from 2004 to 2014, with the artist-academician’s fairy-tale fascination with the celestial being celebrated in Oriental and Western folklore for its magical prowess in the sky and under the sea. Jolly Koh was born in 1941 in the Chinese lunar year of the Metal Snake which shares some similarities with its more supernatural brethren. The dragon is the symbol of imperial China and is said to control the four seasons, and thus, climate change. But how do you manifest the scent of a dragon? Here, Jolly Koh departs from his bright illuminating colours for a plethora of ethereal cloudburst and a spectral darker-hued enclave of colour spectrum. The scent, it seems, veers towards the visual rather than the smell. This work was a feature piece in the “Jolly Koh at Petronas” exhibition at Galeri Petronas in May 2008. Jolly Koh’s defining moment is his 2017 milestone exhibition in Kuala Lumpur celebrating 60 years of painting, marked by a presentable coffee-table publication. It was organised by Henry Butcher Art Auctioneers. It marks his twin achievements straddling academia and painting practice. Apart from his pedagogical writing, Jolly Koh had taught Art in Malaysia (ITM, Gaya College in Sabah and back at MSC College later) and Australia (12 years, ending as a senior lecturer at TAFE College in Adelaide). He was educated in the United Kingdom (Hornsey and London University) and the United States (Indiana University, Ed.D and Msc, where he even taught Masters students for a year). His early prominence was as one of the Magnificent 7 abstract artists in the GRUP exhibition held at the AIA Building, Kuala Lumpur, in 1967. His last solo, Jolly@80, was held in January 2022.