1960年出生于上海一个工人家庭。很小的时候，他就开始通过画画来证明自己的天赋。1978年，他对“19世纪1820-1905年法国乡村生活”展览印象深刻，这是中国最早的西方艺术展览之一。从那时起，他着迷于欧洲古典大师。他的好奇心使他在20岁时离开了自己的国家，前往法国美术学院学习。正是那段时期，严培明发现了自我，并建立起自我风格。
在艺术生涯早起，严培明运用质朴、有力且明快的视觉语言进行创作，其特点是色调克制，画幅宏大。1986年毕业后，他在蓬杜·于尔丹（Pontus Hultén）主持的法国巴黎造型艺术高级研究院进修了一年。1990年，他获得法国国籍，同年在第戎购置了自己的第一间工作室。此后，他开始频繁参与各类群展，并在其中不断拓展肖像画与自画像的创作，深入探寻存在的本质及其深刻而矛盾的特性。
创作成熟期，严培明探索出了一种更微妙的绘画方式，其中色彩变得更为重要。他创作了一系列肖像、自画像、动物画、风景画、静物和宗教绘画。严培明巧妙地绕过了这些杰作，与大师们面对面地解读它们。他的绘画语言赢得了胜利，并产生了新的共鸣，每幅画都充满了情感。
Born in 1960 in a working-class family in Shanghai, Yan Pei-Ming began to prove his talent through painting at a very young age. In 1978, he was impressed by the exhibition "French Country Life in the 19th Century 1820-1905", one of the earliest exhibitions of Western art in China. From then on, he was fascinated by European classical masters. His curiosity led him to leave his country at the age of 20 to study at the École des Beaux-Arts in France. It was during that period that Yan Pei-Ming discovered himself and established his own style.
Early in his artistic career, Yan Pei-Ming used a simple, powerful and bright visual language to create works characterized by restrained tones and large-scale paintings. After graduating in 1986, he studied for a year at the Paris Institute of Advanced Studies in Plastic Arts under Pontus Hultén. In 1990, he obtained French citizenship and purchased his first studio in Dijon in the same year. Since then, he has frequently participated in various group exhibitions, in which he has continuously expanded his portraiture and self-portrait creation, exploring the essence of existence and its profound and contradictory characteristics.
In his mature years, Yan Pei-Ming explored a more subtle way of painting, in which color became more important. He created a series of portraits, self-portraits, animal paintings, landscapes, still lifes, and religious paintings. Yan Pei-Ming skillfully bypassed these masterpieces and interpreted them face to face with the masters. His painting language won out and created new resonances, and each painting was full of emotion.
