Chris Bracey, who has died aged 59 of prostate cancer, was known as the Neon Man, sometimes as the Master of Glow. In his north London workshop, aptly named Gods Own Junkyard, he made and displayed neon signs that combined faith and irreverence. What youve got here, Bracey said in a 2012 television interview about the Junkyard, is Sodom and Gomorrah mixed with art.
Bracey was born in London. His taste for the biblical phrase may have come from his father, Dick, a Welsh coalminer who moved to Walthamstow after the second world war and set up as a maker of neon signs for circuses and fairgrounds. Dicks wife, Doreen, indulged her infant sons early interest in lights, pushing his pram by a circuitous route past a municipal Christmas tree. After an education at a local Catholic school Because I was left-handed I got beaten, Bracey recalled, so religion is something I grew up with the future Neon Man did a foundation course at what is now the London College of Communication.
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