The California artist will be creating Europe's biggest neon installation in a tube station

Los Angeles artist Pae White hopes to bring a dose of Californian sunshine to gloomy London commuters this year, by creating Europe's biggest neon installation at Gloucester Road tube station.

"I want to bring daylight to the underground," said White about the intervention, which will stand at an estimated 260 feet long and 12 feet high. "Imagine a giant Persian rug as a line drawing that's what I want to create in neon," said the artist, who will install more than 2,000 neon tubes.

The work, due to open at the end of the summer, will be in situ for three years and has been commissioned by Art on the Under ground, whose previous collaborations include work by Richard Long and Jeremy Deller.

How will the project, which White describes as "like a giant SAD [Seasonal Affective Disorder] light", affect travellers in the wet-weather city? "I don't know," she said. "But, wouldn't it be great to spread a five-second glow of optimism through a tube carriage?"