New Contemporaries 2026
Joint Winner Daye Allan
Daye is a graduate of Moray School of Art who collects personal possessions to create biographical assemblages of the body and beyond.
Daye investigates people as time capsules, showcasing the eclectic layering of experiences and memories that form our identities. Inspired by Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Daye’s bricolage self-portrait substitutes the artist’s body for the recycled matter of life in in an exploration of the extended self.
Radiating from the self-portrait, Daye tells an expanded story of ‘interbeing’, breathing life into a selection of archival photographs. Painted at a small scale to evoke the intimacy of the personal photograph, these are portals to another time. With each new painted memory in this ongoing body of work, Daye reveals another glimpse into an ever-growing web of colliding stories.