O’Neil uses ‘found’ photographic material from pre‐digital books to create large‐scale, analogue photomontages. The aesthetics of obsolete print technology, with their muted or no colour and varied textures, give her access to the past and allow her to create tangible lapses of time. Through a long process of collection, cutting and editing, she recontextualises groups of images and weaves them into new scenarios, in which personal memories intertwine with cultural histories of ruin and loss, as well as more positive aspirations.

This body of work represents the artist’s navigation of her role as a new mother, with its hallucinatory sleep deprivation and psychological and physical transformations. The nature of her montage-style work reflects this transitional and sometimes disjointed period in O’Neil’s life and work.