The talented painter is one of the 120-stong community of artists working at the huge Baumwollspinnerei former cotton mill.

She is one of a group of foreign artists attracted to the site by its reputation as a breeding ground for creativity.

Mrs Miskis is spending five months at the mill, on a scholarship from the prestigious New York School of Visual Arts.

Every year the school sends a top student to Leipzig. From next year it will send two.

She has been actually living in her studio at the mill and said: “My work has improved ten fold. I’ve also met people from Russia, Finland, Sweden, and learned about different arts cultures, and the different grants and government support.

“In New York you are one artist in a million, but here it’s not as cut-throat, there’s collaboration.”