After taking the first degree in law, Paeffgen finished his law studies in Cologne and Berlin in 1956. Ten years later, in 1970, he started to paint. At the same time the artist began to join found objects together by winding wire round them - a technique he uses up to the present time. These 'wound objects', which he often continues to work on gradually, are confronted with the 'bordered paintings'. These are the traced outlines of newspaper pictures, which are projected and reworked on screen. In the 1980s Paeffgen became widely known by these works. However he already participated in exhibitions for the first time in the 1970s, e.g. in the Kunsthalle Köln in 1970 and in the Kunstverein Hamburg in 1979. Since the 1970s a remarkable number of single exhibitions followed. Paeffgen's works were shown at exhibitions in the Gallery t'Venster in Rotterdam in 1977, in the Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf and the Karl Ernst Osthaus Museum in Hagen in 1979. His art was also exhibited in the Bonner Kunstverein in 1981, at Artinizing in Munich in 1986, in the Gallery Rudolf Zwirner in Cologne in 1992, and in the Kestner-Gesellschaft in Hannover in 1993. Furthermore, the Museum Ludwig, the most prestigious museum of contemporary art in Paeffgen's hometown presented his works in the spring of 1999.