Clifford Chance

Chris Orr R.A. awards Clifford Chance Printmaking Purchase Prize to Ralph Overill

Chris Orr, Royal Academician and Professor of Printmaking at the Royal College of Art 1998-2008, was invited to select the recipient of the Purchase Prize at Clifford Chance's annual Postgraduate Printmaking survey exhibition. Commenting on the works of the 14 exhibiting artists, selected from London Art Colleges, he spoke about 'the huge spectrum of printmaking going on in London's art schools, and beyond' reflective, he thought, of 'the golden age of printmaking we are experiencing.'

Chris Orr awarded the Purchase Prize to Ralph Overill, praising his multi-part etching as 'beautifully mysterious, with an odd Outsider quality' that 'had stuck with him'. He described the print as 'enigmatic, poetic, a strange piece' that was not obvious in its subject, or how it was made. Ralph's theme of pond life, Orr considered, 'is an apt metaphor for how things are today.'

Ralph Overill completed his Postgraduate studies at Camberwell College of Arts in 2011. 'My work is about a world on the edge. I explore the margins and wastelands where construction merges with corrosion and the primordial meets the industrial. Caught between fabrication and gestation, these are sites of instability, fragility and vulnerability.'  Through printmaking, he captures 'A moment in metamorphosis transformed and transferred through oil and acid. The remnants of zinc and traces of ink gesture a delicate existence.'

Through the Clifford Chance Purchase Prize, the artist's work will be acquired for the Clifford Chance art collection.