Suburban Utopia, An Infertile Place (SU4IP)
Lyndon Watkinson
Lyndon Watkinson (1999) is an artist, designer, writer, and musician based in Sheffield, UK. Democratising art and art context through artworks, publications, graphic design, articles, and sound. Creative director and founder of the online arts organisation SU4IP. His work is characterised by a desire for precision, often depicting aesthetics that celebrate and criticise the absurdity of corporatized identity, calling into question the necessity of creating false exteriors when what is not seen is often just as important.
In late 2020, a blog post entitled Suburban Utopia, An Infertile Place formed part of the wider inquiry and development of his practice for his bachelor's degree in fine art. As his work matured, he applied this term as a formalisation of his creative endeavours, later abbreviating it to SU4IP, now used as a digital alias and publishing entity.
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Digital Collage, 2022
Incorporating visual language derived from Erik Bulatov’s Skier (1971–74), Skier illustrates the constraints imposed on Ukrainian sovereignty by Russian forces since the impending invasion on the 24th February 2022.
Sampling hues of red, blue, and yellow from the flags of each respective nation, rigid overlapping lines form a uniform grid, illuding both the inherent numerical mismatch of the conflict and the strength with which the Ukrainian forces impose themselves on the encroaching Russian military.
︎ Skier was born out of a period of uncertainty. Desperate to use my skills to help a sovereign nation that had been subjected to a military assault, I felt compelled to create an artistic response to my feelings about Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Deeply inspired by the work of Eric Bulatov’s Skier, I wanted to reuse the visual elements used to describe the oppressive nature of life in the Soviet Union and reapply them to information-era Russian Federation foreign policy. The concept transferred very well, providing dialogue surrounding the ‘boxed-in’ nature of Ukraine in relation to its geographic location and the encompassing encroachment into its territories.
The underlying image too depicts individuals absorbed into a white landscape, derived from an untraceable and equally anonymous source, symbolising the voiceless nature of citizens subject to unwarranted aggression. The use of the red grid highlights a return-to-roots initiative for Russia, once again subjecting surrounding states to the ideological will of its dictator, with the blue and yellow boxes standing firm in the face of overwhelming odds.