Etchells’ neon To See Better Days comprises an incomplete imperative or instructional phrase which appears to invite the viewer to glimpse or imagine better times. Installed for its first presentation high up on a building at The Spot in Derby, the work references the shifts and transformations in the urban landscape around it as well as appearing to offer the possibility of improved vantage from a height. What kinds of perspectives or ways of thinking do people need in order to see their way out of trouble or difficulty? How does our society think about social improvement and the possibilities for economic and political change?

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.