Wife of Belgian Ambassador Keeps Memory of GreatFall in Korea
By Kim Se-jeong
Staff reporter
The wife of the Belgian ambassador unveiled her artistic talent Thursday, through paintings both of her motherland and Korea.
Yuan Lee Mine was a Chinese emigrant to Belgium. She married her Chinese-Belgian husband Victor Wei, who later became the Belgian ambassador to Seoul.
Yuan was a student at the Royal Fine Arts Academy in Brussels, Belgium, when she met her husband, a third generation Chinese emigrant. She studied oil painting at the academy.
Although she has held many exhibitions, this is her first in Korea. The most recent exhibition was held in Luxemburg last month.
Forty-eight paintings and watercolors went on display on Thursday. The majority of them were done over the last two years, she said.
``I liked to keep my memories of Korea," she said explaining why she had been working ceaselessly for the last two years, especially in the fall.
``Fall in Europe is nice, but it rains a lot. But fall in Korea is dry and just great,'' Yuan said. She added she would continue to paint to remember her traveling experiences.
Among the guests at the exhibition were Naomi Al-Midhadi, vocalist, composer, painter and wife of the ambassador from Qatar; and N. Parthasarathi, the Indian ambassador, who recently published a historical novel about a Korean king and an Indian princess in the Shilla Kingdom.
The exhibition ends on Sept 17. Afterwards, the works will go on sale. ``The money will be used to help a Belgian doctor who runs a clinic helping Korean people,'' Lee Mine said.
The 61-year-old doctor Marie-helene Brasseur, operates ``Jeonjinsang'' clinic in Siheung-dong, Geumcheon-gu, Seoul. According to a Korean staff member at the clinic, the doctor is currently attending a conference in Brussels. Brasseur is a family practitioner as well as a specialist in hospice care.
Brasseur came to Korea in 1972 as a nurse, and received her medical degree from Chungang University.