Dr Ralph Overill

Ralph Overill’s practice employs printmaking in combination with photography, performance, installation, and creative writing, as he explores the topographical and cultural alienation at the peripheries of our increasingly bonkers, late-capitalist society.

Disillusioned by an inability to fit into a heavily homogenised world governed by business ontologies, Ralph adopted the identity of ‘The Last Cyberman’, a lone surviving automaton from a lost future where capitalist systems have collapsed. In a search for new purpose and truth to existence, beyond profit margins and commodification, The Last Cyberman walks the margins of his home county of Essex, documenting his findings and thoughts through redundant cameras and a tattered notebook. These fragments construct an ambiguous world where past and future merge and alienation is embraced, all with an urgent, often humorous cynicism to the status quo.

In 2023, Ralph’s work developed an auto-fictional approach, as his pursuit of stable employment and drive to fulfill his potential led to him accepting a position at the Glasgow School of Art. Bravely leaving friends and family, he ventured north, alone, escaping the stifling lack of space and opportunity in the Southeast to face a new, unforeseen adventure in the undiscovered country of Scotland.

Ralph achieved a Professional Doctorate in Fine Art from the University of East London in June 2022 and has been awarded the Clifford Chance Purchase Prize and Curwen Studio Prize for his prints. He works as a printmaking technician at the Glasgow School of Art.