In the art scene of Schwerin their names were as well known as the State Theater the museum or
the castle of that city - Helga Kaffke painter Gabriele Berthel author. That was during the
last quarter of the past century. In the cultural news of the current capital of the county
their names can't be found. Both artists haven't lived in Germany for more than twenty years.
First they looked for the centre of their lives in France - and then found it - since the
millennium - on the North-West coast of Ireland in Mayo. They settled there got married
worked. May the road rise to meet you may the wind be always at your back. This old Irish
blessing didn't always keep its promise: the wind was often a gale and shook the old house that
rose out of the rocks. The two artists counteracted this with their passion: for life for
painting for literature. They had their talents and a backpack full of knowledge and
experience gathered at the colleges in Leipzig - tied forever to their country of birth from
which they had become estranged. The painter Helga Kaffke died in the winter of 2017. Since her
death her spouse Gabriele Berthel shares her life with thousands of pages. Watercolours colour
on paper portraits of landscapes people and animals in Kaffke-style. Kaffke-style is a mark
of quality. Nobody painted watercolours like her: falling lines sloping verticals seemingly
so chaotic one already imagines the fall of Carthage - and yet somewhere a glimpse of sky
remains. Magnificent. Gabriele Berthel paints with words equally magnificent and emotional
until it hurts. She paints in prose and poetry mixes fairytale and reality and covers earthly
realism with melancholy. Thus a book is created in a remote place of the world where in
comparison to sky and sea a person appears to be a dwarf. A book about love and life and the
strength to endure it for every place in world. In this place her life was always blowing in
the wind - jacket like trousers between two brittle poles. And she keeps still facing the
earth - she knows it well - it was her life worth. Helga Kaffke. Gabriele Berthel. For a long
time their names had vanished from the cultural news. This is about to change. In Schwerin and
other places.
