Bernhard Schottlander, both an artist and an engineer created the DCW Editions Mantis Wall Sconce. His clever system of counter-weights combined with a series of strong, flexible and beautifully fine metal arms create an eternal play between balance and imbalance, ‘solid’ and ‘empty’. The shade also is unique of its kind, like an acrobat suspended in mid-air, its spun aluminium is sculpted in a helical movement in which the symmetrical and the asymmetrical are in opposition. Schottlander’s lights appear to defy the laws of gravity; the essential poetry of the object is an invitation to enter a dream world of the most judiciously balanced elegance.