By Heidi Trautmann

On my website I write reviews on art events and introductions to our Cypriot artists, on facebook I see many artworks by artists from all countries including Iran, Egypt, Turkey, England and so on, but I have hardly anything written about the art in my own hometown. So it is about time that I do and I do this by presenting those who I have met recently on the occasion of an art exhibition I have participated in.

I start with some artwork by Masanne Westermann who has transformed the upper level of her house into an art gallery the ‘Kunstzelle’ which means ‘art cell’, and whom I have known and worked with for 30 years. She had opened her gallery with her own paintings and ceramic works by our mutual also long-term friend Anne Hesselmann who is a ceramic artist in Neubeuern for many decades. Masanne was in Cyprus two years ago and I took her around some artists’ studios and to art exhibitions. She likes it here very much. See some of her paintings I have taken from her catalogue and some ceramic art work by Anne Hesselmann.

Then, Masanne decided to invite another duet and that was me, Heidi Trautmann and another young ceramic artist or rather sculptor from her neighbourhood, Helga Zellner. Travelling from Cyprus to Munich anyway for my hip operation I took along a map full of sketches from which she chose 20 pieces. I could not attend the opening but had the chance later when I was discharged from the rehab clinic to be present during viewing hours.

I fell in love with the simple and natural small figurines by Helga Zellner as most of the viewers did. Caricatures of normal people in the street. There we have something in common, I also draw my figures how they are and not how I want them to be. Helga has a special way of glazing, transparent, vivid, and that gives her figurines a touch of reality, of truth and beauty.

I later visited her studio and we were amazed about the variety of comic situations she has observed the models for her sculptures, whole series of them, but also very finely sculpted heads of people such as the head of the Mayor of Rosenheim, a lady who is very art minded. Helga established her studio in a most beautiful old farm house she has married into and she and her husband have transformed this building into a treasure container. The entrance hall in these old big farmhouses usually is a wide corridor of often 5 m width and 10-20 m length with heavy wooden doors on both ends. Helga is doing all the house work herself and she has one daughter who has started to study art. They have decorated the house with local contemporary art.

Her studio is a wide room full of light with shelves along the walls to hold all her little sculptures. On her working table were some new figures waiting to get fired. I am sure she meets the originals in her village, an old village with some history, the women and girls in their vanity, the old ones gossiping, the men with their typical way. Here a collection of her work.

I post also some of my work but you can have a better look on my website directly.

Should you ever come to Rosenheim on your way from Munich to Salzburg, don’t miss to stop for a night or two; it is worth the while, I promise, and then ask for Fürstätt where the studios of Masanne and Helga are and Neubeuern close by where Anne Hesselmann lives.