Using found imagery from pre‐digital books and magazines, Lillian O’Neil makes collages describing the human condition. Her works short-circuit visual information, with bodies taking on peculiar hybrid characteristics, surfaces merging with print textures, and the junctures between body, architecture, day, night, earth and sky all disintegrating. The reduction of colour and the muted tones in the collages ‘make tangible lapses of time’ as they weave together fragments of the past to form new scenarios and narratives.
—José Da Silva
Lillian O’Neil (b. 1985, Naarm/Melbourne, l. Wadawarrung/Torquay) was awarded the 2021 Bowness Photography Prize at Monash Gallery of Art. O'Neil completed a Master of Fine Art at Sydney College of the Arts, The University of Sydney in 2012. In 2020, she commenced a Doctor of Philosophy at RMIT, Melbourne.
Key exhibitions:
- Lillian O'Neil: The light that spills across the ground between shadows, curated by José Da Silva, UNSW Galleries, Sydney, 2024 (forthcoming)
- Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Inner Sanctum, curated by José Da Silva, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2024
- Unpopular, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, 2022
- PHOTO 2021 International Festival of Photography: The Truth, Melbourne
- The Body Electric, curated by Shaune Lakin at the National Gallery of Australia, 2020
- In the Cut – collage as idea, curated by Hannah Matthews, at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 2013
Collections:
Anne and Gordon Samstag Museum of Art
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Art Gallery of South Australia
Artbank
BresicWhitney Collection
Sir Elton John Collection
Monash Gallery of Art/Museum of Australian Photography
National Gallery of Australia