THEY’VE had a long wait to show their work, but finally seven artists from Yorkshire-based collective Artfusion North will be staging an exhibition of paintings, sculpture and glasswork in Batley.
The exhibition, which opens in Batley Art Gallery tomorrow, should have opened there 18 months ago. But it was called off after the gallery ceiling collapsed in May, 2007, two days before the show was due to open.
Artists Eva Mileusnic, Hatti McKenzie, Robert McConnell, Sally Storr, Bernadette Cowie, Larna Campbell and Phil Reynolds will now see their work on display for a month in an event which marks a milestone for all of them.
Each member of the group has undergone a complete career or life re-invention. Some have followed the advice of the Government to re-train; others followed a lifelong dream that had been put on hold.
Most of them met while studying for degrees in art.
Some members of the group now teach, some run workshops for community art projects. But all of them create art and together they are known as Artfusion North, a collective of emerging artists.
Eva Mileusnic, of Birkenshaw, who has strong personal ties to the area, is showing several pieces of work.
Her parents, Irén and Stephen Csuk, settled in Dewsbury in the late 1950s after escaping from Russian-occupied Hungary following the 1956 Hungarian uprising.
Both were initially employed in the textile industry, at Wormalds and Walkers. Irén then worked part time at Fox’s Biscuits in Batley for 30 years.
Images of Irén, Stephen and other family members feature regularly in Eva’s work, which is concerned with the enforced exile and its effect on the family. The work in the exhibition centres on distorted memories of life before they has to flee.
Eva’s decision to study fine art followed many years of working part time as a personal secretary in both the legal and medical professions and while raising her two sons.
In the early 1980s Eva worked as practice manager at Batley Health Centre and helped her husband establish Mileusnic Pharmacy on Commercial Street in Batley.
The gallery opens 9.30am to 7pm on Mondays and Wednesday, from 9.30am to 5pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays and from 9am to 4pm on Saturdays.
More information about the artists can be found on the group’s website, www.artfusionnorth.co.uk
