Len Hollman is an artist living near Milton Keynes. His pictures originate as pencil drawings
on stretched paper, begun with no particular subject matter in mind. After several days of
drawing and erasing, Hollman’s subjects begin to appear. The images that surface relate to
long-buried childhood memories, dreams or fantasies.
In the workshop of Dr. Coppélius imagines a scene from the ballet Coppélia (1870), with
score by Léo Delibes. In the ballet, the eccentric Dr Coppélius makes a life-sized female
mannequin with whom Franz, a village boy, falls in love.
The Sacred Flame suggests the importance in many cultures of fire as a focus of worship
and ritual. Fire is often a symbol of purity and continuity, in the form of a sacred flame either
placed on an altar or existing within a secret place. Those chosen to tend the sacred flame
have often been required to share its properties of purity and grace.