Work No. 2314 by artist Martin Creed is a colourful neon installation on the south façade of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū that spells out the words EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE ALRIGHT. The artwork is always lit, making it stand out – particularly, of course, at night. Made in 2015 and turned on in September that year, just months before the Gallery reopened after a period of closure following the 2010–11 Canterbury earthquakes, it is the third of the ‘Five Great Works’ acquired by the Gallery’s Foundation to mark each year the Gallery building was closed.

Each neon letter is a different colour, and measures about 1.5 metres high, around the length of an arm span. Running the entire Worcester Boulevard side of the Gallery, Work No. 2314 is 46 metres long, almost half the length of the block. When seen from street level, the work feels giant and radiant. You can also encounter it, in part, from inside the building in the Gabrielle Tasman Lounge on the second floor, which is directly below Creed’s work. From the lounge window you can see the words EVERYTHING IS to the right at one end, and part of the word ALRIGHT at the other.

The neon colours are bright and celebratory, like confetti or sprinkles on a birthday cake. Creed has used marshmallow pink, leaf green, lemon yellow, grape purple, a teal like clear sea water, sky blue, sunny orange and a punchy fast-car red.

This artwork is one of a series by Turner Prize-winning British artist Creed in which the phrase ‘Everything is going to be alright’ has been wired up in neon in various colour combinations, including all white in 1999 for its first presentation in Work No. 203. Creed has presented the work in single colours: blue for the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh, white for Tate Britain in London and red for Times Square in New York. Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū is one of the few rainbow neon iterations.

Because this phrase has been strung up in many different social, cultural and geographic contexts, some people read the work as hopeful while others read it as ironic, as if pointing to the ways in which things are most definitely not alright. Here in post-quake Ōtautahi Christchurch, though, many see the artwork as inspirational and comforting, a multi-coloured reminder of hope. As Creed himself has said, “No one can say everything is going to be alright, but despite that, many times in my life I have been very comforted by people saying something like that to me.”