Muswellbrook Regional Arts Centre

2026 Mullins Conceptual Photography Prize

Peel

Mark Neal Alday

Peel, 2026 Giclée print on fine art cotton rag 59.4 x 84.1 cm

In an era when recollection without a recording becomes unreliable and generative AI twists truth in documenting, I embrace the inaccuracy of a photograph made from human memory. In "Peel", I captured the bark of an ancient tree in Melbourne with my eyes, printing by hand with traditional ballpoint techniques. I then returned to the site and recaptured it with a camera, placing them side-by-side. "Phos" and "graphê”, meaning drawing with light — my body itself an instrument of image-making.