LIBBY O'NEILL
About Beach Town
As winters’ blanket slowly succumbs to sand dunes, and pools, once congested with fallen debris and stagnant rainwater, now stand unblemished, coastal suburb communities revive and awaken. I grew up in a small town along the eastern shoreline. To live as a local in a beach town community is to be attuned to an atmosphere of quiet —sometimes dreary—anticipation. Time lingers during the off season as most of the year is spent preparing for a fleeting season of warm weather and verve.
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Beach Town explores my infatuation for—yet ambivalence towards—the quirks of shore life. With their mom and pop restaurants, tacky souvenir shops, and nautically themed rental properties, these communities are at turns ramshackle and beautiful, still and energetic, melancholy and joyous.
About Libby
Libby's fascination with photography started early in her youth. Subconsciously, she unveiled her passion for documentary photography shuffling through her family’s vast archive of images. Her parents and grandparents accumulated thousands of photographs throughout their lifetimes and Libby would mull over each one of them. The sense of nostalgia that washed over her each time she admired the collection inspired her to, subconsciously, document her own life adopting a similar snapshot aesthetic. While earning her BFA degree in Film, Photography, and Visual Arts at Ithaca College Libby has honed her skills and matured, what began as a hobby, into a precise, thoughtful passion. The work of Nan Goldin and Stephen Shore heavily influenced her artistic vision, as she point her lens toward perplexing imperfections to propose a different perception of beauty and worth.