home    personal work    published features  

please click on any image to view a larger version
the long view at Elba Playing Field Gowerton Swansea            geoetric sports marking at Elba Playing Fields Gowerton Swansea
Metaphysical Archaeology is an exploration of the sports landscape which has risen out of the rubble of post industrial South Wales.
all weather surface at an angle        a dog attacks at Elba Playing Field, Gowerton, Swansea        subuteo man plays on the all weather pitch at Elba Playing Fields, Gowerton Swansea
In the same way that a medieval village may be identified from the air by markings which show up in crops, I believe that the spirit of the industrial revolution and the old steel works technology can be seen traced into the rigid lines, bars, prohibitions and accesses demanded by the rule of sport.
playing in a cage at Elba Playing Fileds, Gowerton Swansea        Yellow seats at St Helens Playing Fields, Swansea        Shoot for the sky, soccer posts at Elba Playing Fileds, Gowerton, Swansea
    Designed with little concern for visual impact these arenas are nevertheless subtly articulate about the role of sport in contemporary Welsh culture.
Tennis grid through the fence at Elba Playing Fileds, Gowerton, Swansea
    In these geometric shapes, which reflect the simplified behavioural patterns that are enacted within them and which promise easy solutions to complex problems, I perceive an allegory of the way attitudes and thought processes remain firmly rooted in tradition in a country which must rapidly embrace new realities if it is not to be left behind on the western periphery of modern Europe.

© Patrick Ellis 2001