日期: 27/4/2015 | 新闻来源: 联合早报 | 记者：洪铭铧

新传媒花旦瑞恩饰演本地已故先驱画家张荔英，被其丰富的爱情故事触动，还感叹这时代真爱难寻。

瑞恩演出国家美术馆和亚洲新闻台携手制作的记录剧《张荔英的世界》（The Worlds of Georgette Chen），演出这个传奇女性的一生。该剧主要以英语发音，将于后天（29日）起，每逢星期三晚上8点于亚洲新闻台播出。

上周五举行记者会，瑞恩穿着旗袍出席，颇具女人味。

多场绘画戏“手替”代劳

张荔英生于1906年，卒于1993年，该剧呈献了她的美术生涯，包括她南来新加坡之后，在南洋美专（南洋艺术学院的前身）任教的日子。

瑞恩说，这部剧跟一般电视剧最大的不同，就是她的台词不多，拍摄重点多放在塑造人物的造型，例如发型等细节上。

她说，之前没有听过张荔英的名字，但读了剧本后，被她的爱情故事触动，所以决定接拍。问她被哪个部分触动，她说，张荔英20来岁就结婚，嫁给比她大20多岁的男人，并对他关爱、忠诚。她相信那种真爱，并感叹现在已很难找到。

剧集在本地与法国巴黎取景，瑞恩说虽然自己在美术方面缺乏天分，但也趁出国时去参观博物馆，对于梵谷和莫内等大师的作品留下印象，连鉴赏水平也提高了。

剧中有多场拿画笔绘画的戏，她透露有“手替”代劳。

形容张荔英像谜一样

她也形容张荔英为一个谜，希望观众通过节目慢慢了解她。

该剧有不少道具都具有历史意义，包括张荔英丈夫写给她的父亲的提亲信，张荔英家人之间的名信片，张荔英少有的旧照及自画像。

由于是纪录片，许多拍摄细节都得考究，例如剧组把一所废弃的学校改成上世纪40年代的香港酒店，张荔英就是在那里被日军捉走。

问黑脸风波，一脸疑惑

瑞恩本月19日出席红星大奖第一场颁奖礼时，因为黑脸镜头引起观众、网民炮轰。记者会前一天，国家美术馆临时发出电邮，要求记者只提跟节目相关的问题。记者会当天，记者在《洪门宴》发表了对她黑脸风波的看法，所以在专访时间，原本想问她是否有任何回应，或是沉淀几天后，有没有反省或想法，但瑞恩一脸疑惑的望着经理人，经理人说，瑞恩从早忙到下午，还没有时间阅读报纸。

The Worlds of Georgette Chen debuts 29 April 2015 on CNA, 8pm.

Source: Zaobao

Categorised in CH, The Worlds Of Georgette Chen, Zaobao.

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By Rebecca Tan Hui Shan

Watching Rui En take her seat on stage and tuck her legs delicately by her side, it feels uncannily like looking at pioneer artist Georgette Chen, whom the actress portrays in an upcoming three-part docudrama.

Beyond the sharp chin, ruler-straight posture and pursed red lips, there seems to be a sophisticated, unapologetic dignity about the 34-year-old MediaCorp actress that similarly emanates from the woman in the self-portrait behind her.

During the filming for the programme, which premieres on Wednesday on Channel Newsasia and MediaCorp Channel 5, Rui En uncovered aspects of Chen that she identified with intimately.

At a press conference last Friday, she says of Chen: “She was feisty, strong-willed and incredibly independent. In these ways, I felt like a mirror of her.”

She adds with a laugh that “both of us also do not smile very much” – alluding to the recent media backlash against her supposedly sulky demeanour at the Star Awards.

Born in 1906 in Zhejiang, China, Chen is best known for her still life paintings and portraits and contributed tremendously to the growth of the Nanyang art movement in Singapore, which fused South-east Asian themes with Western painting techniques.

The docudrama, The Worlds of Georgette Chen, commissioned by the National Gallery Singapore and produced by Channel NewsAsia, recreates the colourful life of the artist, who had a privileged, cosmopolitan upbringing as the daughter of a rich businessmman.

It takes viewers from her childhood in France to her youth in revolutionary China and, finally, her adulthood in Singapore, where she taught at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. She died in 1993 after a long illness.

She was highly regarded for her post-Impressionistic work, with her heavy brushstrokes and emphasis on volume and texture influenced by French Impressionists of the late 19th century.

She was one of the few female Chinese artists featured in the famous Salon d’Automne exhibitions in Paris. In 1982, she was awarded Singapore’s Cultural Medallion. Her works will be on display at the National Gallery when it opens in October.

Yet, for all her professional success, it was her capacity for love that Rui En admires most.

The actress explains: “Even though her husband, Eugene Chen, was a political fugutive and more than twice her age, he was the love of her life. For me, what makes her human is that she dared to love unconventionally.”

One of the most memorable scenes, she accounts, was filmed in an unabandoned school in Braddell Road. She was tasked to play the piano while channelling the grief that Chen had for her husband who had just died, shortly after the end of the Sino-Japanese war in 1944.

While Chen may have been “a woman after my own heart” to Rui En, portraying her did not come without difficulty.

Prior to the project, she knew little about the artist. She was terrified at having to portray a real-life person for the first time, though she says this fear was also what challenged her to take the job.

To prepare herself, she read up as much as she could on the artist, from biographies by art historians to Chen’s personal letters.

At the same time, she was also grateful that there was limited video documentation of the artist as this gave her the space to “breathe life into the character”.

She hopes that by portraying Chen as a woman, rather than just an artist, she can bring her story to a wider audience.

“We do not want the production to be an arty-farty docudrama made for people who already know about her.”

Rui En also had to get used to the lack of dialogue. In most scenes, information is delivered by a narrator and the cast is used only to dramatise a particular moment or encounter. Freed from having to memorise lines, Rui En was able to focus on the production’s other priorities, such as historical accuracy.

Managing director of Channel NewsAsia Debra Soon explains that to achieve an accurate portrayal of the artist, all the periods of her life spent in Paris and Shanghai were shot on location. Sixty-two other sets were created in Singapore and each prop, right down to Chen’s paintbrush, was selected carefully.

Naturally, these efforts required an extensive amount of research, which led to valuable new discoveries. For example, a fifth self-portrait by Chen, which had been given to an old neighbour of hers, was uncovered during the making of the docudrama, along with the unpublished memoirs of Chen’s sister.

Curatorial and collections director at the National Gallery, Mr Low Sze Wee, says that new painting may well be the earliest known self-portrait of Chen, preceding the four that had been discovered before.

The journey had also been personally enlightening for Rui En.

“As you grow older, you want to learn more about the world around you. This project came at a point when I was just starting to become interested in other forms of art beyond acting. From it, I have begun to cultivate real appreciation of other mediums,” she says.

The Worlds of Georgette Chen debuts 29 April 2015 on CNA, 8pm.

Source: The Straits Times, Her World

Categorised in EN, Her World, The Straits Times, The Worlds Of Georgette Chen.

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By Han Wei Chou

RBKD: Rui En and the cast of The Worlds Of Georgette Chen shared their experiences shooting the three-part docudrama, at a special preview screening and media conference held at the National Gallery Singapore on last Friday.

To play the artist, Rui En revealed that she not only picked up the basics of sketching and painting, but also had to learn to speak several lines of Malay and French, and even sing two Malay songs as well as a French lullaby in the series. This was stressful for her but she had help from her co-star Ralph Lee to vet her accuracy.

While Rui En played Georgette Chen in the docudrama, she said she is not artistically inclined and has never attempted a self-portrait before. “Painting my own self-portrait will be a nightmare! I can act, I can sing but when it comes to doing things with my hands, I am a complete failure. The best I could do for art, maybe, would be stick figures. So no, I would not attempt to paint a self-portrait,” said Rui En, before adding that she may take on art classes in the future when she is less busy.

The Worlds of Georgette Chen debuts 29 April 2015 on CNA, 8pm.

Source: Channelnewsasia

Categorised in channelnewsasia.com, EN, The Worlds Of Georgette Chen.

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丘芳瑄报道

RBKD: 由国家美术馆及新传媒亚洲新闻台拍摄制作的纪录剧（Docudrama）《张荔英的世界》（The Worlds of Georgette Chen）呈献张荔英的美术生涯。第一集将于4月29日晚首播，制作团队和主要演员日前举行首映会及记者会，分享拍摄成果。

瑞恩也自认与张荔英有许多相似的性格特点。 “第一，我们笑不多，第二，她是一个意志力坚强的女人，非常有自己的想法，还非常有自己的立场跟原则，她有时候是蛮固执的，我觉得，她的生活方式，她没有去管别人怎么看她，怎么想，或者别人会有什么批评，她完全不管，所以坦白说，有蛮多相似的地方。”

Click here for the video.

The Worlds of Georgette Chen debuts 29 April 2015 on CNA.

Source: Channel 8 News

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The Worlds of Georgette Chen debuts 29 April 2015 on CNA, 8pm.

Categorised in channelnewsasia.com, The Worlds Of Georgette Chen.

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1. Scene & Heard Pages 16-17

RBKD: 8 DAYS interviewed 4 MediaCorp staff in anonymity and 2 of whom supported Rebecca Lim to win Best Actress this year.

The Ch8 Senior Exec takes a dig at Rui En, claiming that being cool and angsty ain’t always the formula to winning. The veteran Ch8 actor hopes Rebecca would win as he likes her real-life personality.

A Ch8 Senior Producer shared that this is a tough one but thinks that Rui En shined as her emotions came through and he/she was impressed.

8 DAYS’s choice was between Felicia Chin & Rebecca Lim, with the eventual vote going to Rebecca Lim, calling her the best thing in the otherwise disappointing show. 8 DAYS also shared that Rebecca’s win will prove that you don’t need to be ‘raped’ to win.

2. Advertorial Pages 40-41

Star Awards Top 40 Most Popular Artiste Nominees

3. Television Page 79

The Star Awards 2015 – Show 2

4. Watch It! Page 80

The Worlds of Georgette Chen debuts 29 April, 8pm on CNA.

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VOTE FOR RUI EN – STAR AWARDS 2015

1. Favourite Female Character (100% online, FOC): http://bit.ly/xueqingSA2015

2. Final Top 10 Most Popular Female Artistes Award:

a. Online (50%, FOC): http://bit.ly/ruienSA2015

b. Hotline (50%, 86c/call, unlimited): 1900-112-2028

Categorised in 8 DAYS, EN, Star Awards, Star Awards 2015, The Worlds Of Georgette Chen.

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The Worlds of Georgette Chen debuts 29 April 2015 on CNA, 8pm.

Categorised in The Worlds Of Georgette Chen.

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As part of our efforts to pro­mote appre­ci­ation and under­stand­ing of Singapore’s art devel­op­ment, the Gal­lery has com­mis­sioned a three-part doc­u­drama on Geor­gette Chen (1906 — 1993), one of Singapore’s most loved artists.

The Worlds of Geor­gette Chen will fea­ture MediaCorp’s top act­ress, Rui En, as the iconic artist. The premiere tele­cast will air on 29 April 2015 on Chan­nel News­Asia and Medi­aC­orp Chan­nel 5. Geor­gette Chen received her art edu­ca­tion in Paris, New York and Shang­hai, before find­ing her home in Singa­pore. Regarded for her colossal con­tri­bu­tions to the bur­geon­ing Nan­yang school of paint­ing and to Singapore’s art move­ment for over four dec­ades, Geor­gette Chen was awar­ded the Cul­tural Medal­lion in 1982.

Giv­ing view­ers an insight into the dra­matic worlds of Geor­gette Chen, the docudrama’s storyline spans across three peri­ods, includ­ing the tumul­tu­ous years of the Second World War: the French period from 1927 to 1933; the Chinese/Hong Kong period from 1934 to 1948; and the Penang/Singapore period from 1950 to 1980.

Immensely inspired by her sur­round­ings, Geor­gette pro­duced still lifes, por­traits and land­scapes from each phase. Her por­traits of her first hus­band and more import­antly, of her­self, are paint­erly win­dows to her cine­matic life.

Art­works by Geor­gette Chen will be on dis­play in the DBS Singa­pore Gal­lery when the Gal­lery opens in 2015.

Epis­ode 1: Love in Autumn

Geor­gette Chen received her early art edu­ca­tion mainly in Paris. She was immensely inspired by Paris, a city she loved and where she had her first rare break­through as an Asian female artist. It was also in Paris that she mar­ried a man who became her leit motif of love. Her por­traits of her first hus­band, and more import­antly, of her­self, are paint­erly win­dows to her cine­matic life.

Epis­ode 2 Dark Pas­sage in Winter

After her mar­riage to prom­in­ent Chinese politi­cian Eugene Chen, Geor­gette jour­neyed through the dark pas­sage of winter in her life. Polit­ics and war decided her fate. Yet, she held on to her sin­gu­lar pas­sion – paint­ing. She con­tin­ued to pro­duce an impress­ive oeuvre of still lifes, por­traits and land­scapes dur­ing the most tumul­tu­ous and nomadic years of her life.

Epis­ode 3: Death­less Days in Summer

By age 48, Geor­gette Chen had sur­vived two world wars, suffered under the Japan­ese occu­pa­tion of China, mourned her first hus­band and divorced her second. Now alone and dis­placed, she sought refuge in Singa­pore. In this land of per­petual sum­mer, which she called her “Tahiti”, the pro­lific artist per­fec­ted her tech­nique and taught at the Nan­yang Academy of Fine Arts.

The Worlds of Georgette Chen debuts 29 April 2015 on CNA, 8pm.

Source:National Gallery

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The Worlds of Georgette Chen debuts 29 April 2015 on CNA and Ch 5.

Categorised in channelnewsasia.com, The Worlds Of Georgette Chen, Video.

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