In these two new linked neon works – Suddenly (Morning) and Suddenly (Night) – Etchells makes contradictory assertions about the perceived passage of time (’suddenly it was morning”, “suddenly it was night”), playfully invoking distinct and mutually exclusive narrative scenarios. The works were installed for the first time in the basement space of Renata Fabbri in Milan, as part of the two person show Same River Twice which framed Etchells’s neon work alongside new drawings and sculptural pieces by Vlatka Horvat. A larger scale work using the same phrases Suddenly (Morning and Night) was subsequently created for exhibition at London’s Southbank Centre.

About Tim Etchells’ neon and LED works
Etchells’ neon and LED pieces often draw on his broader fascinations as an artist, writer and performance maker, exploring contradictory aspects of language – the speed, clarity and vividness with which it communicates narrative, image and ideas, and at the same time its amazing propensity to create a rich field of uncertainty and ambiguity.

Through simple phrases spelt out in neon, LED and other media, Etchells strives to create miniature narratives, moments of confusion, awkwardness, reflection and intimacy in public and gallery settings. Encountering the neon sign works, in the streets of a city or in the space of a white cube gallery, the viewer becomes implicated in a situation that’s not fully revealed, or a linguistic formulation that generates confusion or ambiguity. As often in Etchells’ work, in the neons the missing parts of the picture are as important as the elements that are present. Invoking a story, or projecting an idea out-of-context, the work invites us in, but into what exactly we can’t be sure.