颜正安:著名美籍女画家的故乡情

这次主题为“故园寻梦”的个人画展，是颜正安心中永远抹不去的一丝乡愁。 作为外交官夫人，她到过许多国家，但在她看来，江南无锡永远是魂牵梦绕的故乡。 家乡秀美的山水，古镇的粉墙黛瓦、小桥流水都是颜正安创作的主题之一。颜正安一家可谓是无锡的书香门第，她的外祖母和太祖母、姨妈都擅长于作画，在颜正安的记忆里，儿时就是看着祖辈们画画长大的。谈到画风，颜正安说不管是什么样风格的作品，都称得上是“颜氏”力作。

Beautiful, dignified and fluent in English, Yan Zheng'an is the strong wife of a top-notch diplomat.

Born and raised in Shanghai, she appeared in her first film at the age of 15. She was a film director and TV producer for the Discovery Channel in the US. She is a painter who recently held an exhibition in Wuxi near Shanghai. Today we'll meet Yan and hear her stories as a diplomat's wife, a mother of two daughters, and a painter. Here's Damin.

REPORTER: Yan Zheng'an was born into an intellectual family in Shanghai in the 1950s. At the age of 15, she played a leading role in a film produced at the famed Shanghai Film Studio where she started her early acting career.

20 years ago, she was the only person sent by the country to study film directing in the United States. There she met her future husband Kenneth Jarrett, a fellow student who later became a diplomat and former US Consulate General in Shanghai.

"I've been in Wuxi several times but only to visit. Although I never lived here, I have a deep affection for the city. I have a close relationship with Wuxi because my family originated here and all my parents and grandparents were from Wuxi. Everyone in my family speaks the local dialect at home in Shanghai. That's why I can speak the dialect perfectly."

In old China, women were not taught to read and write. But in Yan's family, women not only could read and write, they were also good painters.

Influenced by the family tradition, Yan developed a keen interest in painting when she was four. She began to learn drawing when she was twelve, and later studied art theory and western style painting when she was in the United States.

"The big family lived under one roof. My grandmother, her mother and my aunts were all good painters. When I was a little girl, I came out of my room each morning to watch them painting or writing Chinese calligraphy. This was an important part of my life."

A large part of Yan's paintings are landscapes about the places she traveled following her husband during his diplomatic missions around the world and during her work trips with her crew as a producer for the Discovery Channel.

In a constant pursuit to perfect her painting skills, Yan has finally developed a style which is a combination of both traditional Chinese and western painting.

Recently, under the title "Dream of Hometown," 50 of her works are on display at the Wuxi Art Gallery, as part of the Wuxi Arts Festival. These carefully selected paintings focus on the landscapes of Wuxi, its colorful residences, bridges and rivers.

"While I was impressed by the changes in Wuxi, I also felt sorry for the lost traditions in the old city. So what I tried to display in my pictures are the landscapes of the old city which I cherish the most."

Shi Min, a visitor at the exhibition, says these paintings reflect a combination of both eastern and western painting styles.

"Her paintings combine the Chinese ink and wash style with Western impressionism, which is very good."

Yan was very close with renowned educator Gu Yuxiu who was also a Wuxi native.

Gu, better known in the west as professor Y.H.Ku, was a renowned engineering teacher in China during the 1930s. He moved to the United States in the 1950s.

When Yan and her husband married in 1985, the couple traveled to Philadelphia to visit Ku at his home.

"Ku is the same age as my grandparents and he and my grandpa had been good friends since childhood. They lived in the same compound. My husband and I visited him to pay our respects. He invited us to have sticky rice balls at home to celebrate the meeting."

During her trip to Ku's former residence to honor the teacher, Yan presented a painting to its museum, now one of the attractions in the city. Titled "Fisherman at Taihu Lake," this painting is one of her favorites. Yan says she drew the painting to honor her ancestors who lived by the lake in Wuxi, and to wish local people in the ancient city an even brighter future.