Simon Gudgeon
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“I stood on a 240 million year old mountain in Africa and watched
the 4.6 billion year old sun descend below the horizon. As the light
diminished, the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way began to glow in the night
sky. Our galaxy extends for 100,000 light years and is part of a universe
consisting of hundreds of billions of galaxies.
It was at that moment I began to grasp the narrowness of
consciousness, the vastness of time and the transience of humanity.”
Search for Enlightenment was unveiled at Riverside Walk Garden,
Millbank, London, next to Tate Britain as part of the Westminster City of
Sculpture Festival, 2010-2012. After being exhibited on Millbank the sculpture
was moved to a permanent home on Carriageway Drive, outside One Hyde Park.
Search for Enlightenment is about our search for knowledge and the
acceptance of our place in the universe.
Two large bronze human heads stand next to each other, a male and a
female their faces raised to the sky. The male is slightly before the female.
The space within each cranium is hollow, through which the viewer can see the
piece from an inside-out perspective and move around it to view it from all
angles, taking in the surrounding landscape and sky. The expressions on these
faces are peaceful and accepting; this man and woman are in contemplation,
absorbing great knowledge, at a point of realisation about their place in the
universe.
Since Simon
Gudgeon created Search for Enlightenment in 2010, the piece has become very
meaningful to many people. A smaller version of the monumental 2.2m high work,
which is cast in bronze, was presented to the Duke of Edinburgh in 2011 for his
90th Birthday at Buckingham Palace, at the 24th Anniversary Dinner of the Duke
of Edinburgh’s Award World Fellowship.