North Korea is a real place that, by dint of enforced isolation, an informational vacuum and the make-believe impact of popular culture, has become a place of modern mythology. A place ruled by a mad, midget king, a barren landscape bereft of dogs, a seething cauldron of bubbling anti-capitalist resentments where beauty queens in tailored uniforms direct traffic — use your imagination. Whatever your image of North Korea, it’s likely wrong because it’s been filtered through propaganda machines on both sides of the 38th parallel.

And so, you’re dragging some serious cultural baggage into the East-West Center Gallery exhibit "North Korean Art on Paper," running through May 8. Whatever your mindset, you’re likely to be surprised. Spoiler alert: There’s not a single image of Dear Leader.

The phrase "socialist realism" is the first piece of baggage to be jettisoned. Unlike the kitschy, innumerable portraits of Chairman Mao beloved by lickspittle running-dog lackeys of the Wall Street power brokers — by which I mean your relatives just back from a tour of China — these aren’t produced as souvenirs. (First, you’d have to have tourists to have a tourist-souvenir industry.) Although all North Korean artists work in state-operated studios, the artwork produced is not so much in service to the state as it is providing product for fellow workers.

"Part of the power of these images comes from the notion that they aren’t simply socialist realism, but great portraiture and works that express an aesthetic intensity," said show curator Michael Schuster. "Many different works and styles for different purposes."

The exhibit consists of about 50 pieces selected from the collections of Abbot Ki Dae Won, who was given several pieces in North Korea a couple of decades ago specifically to share with the world, and from British filmmaker Nicholas Bonner.

When viewing the exhibit, keep in mind that there are separate issues of technique and subject, and both are varied. The only thing these works have in common on a technical level is that they are committed to paper as a medium. There are watercolors, gouache washes, pen and acrylic sketches, full-fledged paintings and even what appear to be Masonite prints, all at a high standard of craftsmanship.

"It’s a window into a world, their world," says Schuster.

This means that a landscape can range from romantically jagged, windswept mountaintops to industrial marshaling yards for trains, and each is given the same scrupulous care. The industrial pieces are actually more interesting. Schuster allows that there is at least a philosophical connection to the public art created in the United States by the Works Prog­ress Administration during the Great Depression, when the government used art to create a feeling of inclusiveness between American citizens and their civic institutions.

He sees a spirituality in the dynamic portraits of working people in the collection, and indeed, just as in the WPA works, there is a mutually affirming celebration of the values of work and society. Schuster calls it "iconography." One of the larger paintings shows a couple of cheerful Korean soldiers helping a female farmhand move a tractor in a pouring rainstorm. It has tremendous kitsch value, but it also speaks to sanctioned governmental values — if there’s a theme, it’s let’s all work together to make North Korea a better place for our children. Hmmm, sounds socialist.

"These are images of very specific people, people with real names and histories. These aren’t artificial icons," said Schuster.

Other pieces cheerfully celebrate factory sewing, growing melons, catching sardines. Not exactly the sort of thing you’d see in a snooty SoHo gallery, but then, when does fine art actually reflect real life? This show not only opens your eyes to North Korean memes, but also conversely makes you ponder the tics of Western artists.

"It’s really very fascinating," said Schuster. "There’s not much information about North Korea, there’s very little human contact and we see only what they want us to."

Does that mean that North Korean artists gravitate toward their own preconceived notions about what artistic face to show the world?

"No, no. The big difference between us and North Korea is that we can show Korean art in the U.S., but they can’t show American art in North Korea. And so the people who produce art there may have little idea what’s acceptable outside their borders."

Enjoy it while you can. This might be the only North Korean art show ever mounted in Hawaii, and likely outside of North Korea itself. This is just the sort of thing the East-West Center is good at.