Steroids
Steroids uses architectural and abstract imagery to evoke the silhouette of a flexing body. The diptych reflects on performance, enhancement, and the tension between visible strength and unseen strain.
In Steroids, two visually distinct photographs are positioned side by side, inviting the viewer to reconcile their formal differences into a unified conceptual whole. On the left, a tapering modernist building rises into an empty sky, crowned by five evenly spaced circular lights. On the right, a lone streak of white light cuts diagonally across a saturated blue field. The diptych, sparse in color and controlled in composition, operates within the realm of visual suggestion, offering the contours of a figure that exists only in the viewer’s perception.
The title serves as both a prompt and a filter—guiding the reading of the images beyond architectural abstraction into the language of the body. The building’s rigid verticality and narrowing structure evoke a flexed forearm; the circular lights align like fingertips poised at the end of a clenched fist. This muscular metaphor is completed by the right-hand panel, where the white streak of light—tilted and isolated—resembles an eye widened by strain or self-surveillance. In this reading, the diptych becomes a stylized portrait of a bodybuilder mid-pose, caught in a moment of exertion and awareness.
This interplay between form and perception is key to the work’s impact. Neither panel is overtly figurative, yet their juxtaposition conjures a narrative of performance and physicality. The building and the streak are not bodies—but they stand in for the mechanics of one: bone and muscle, sight and effort. The use of minimal elements to generate complex associations reflects a broader photographic strategy, wherein structure and light are abstracted to the point of metaphor.
The photographic medium itself plays a crucial role in this translation. The architectural image is sharply resolved and symmetrical, reinforcing its association with control, structure, and intention. By contrast, the abstract light trail appears ephemeral and unstable, produced through long exposure and motion—techniques that embed temporality and tension into the frame. The contrast in photographic technique mirrors the thematic contrast within the diptych: the permanence of constructed strength versus the fleeting nature of its perception.
The concept of enhancement, suggested by the title Steroids, links these formal elements to a wider cultural critique. Steroids, as both a biological enhancer and a symbol of artificial improvement, foreground questions of authenticity, performance, and cost. In this context, the architectural metaphor transforms—no longer just a building, the tower becomes an exaggerated expression of power, augmented and stretched. The eye-shaped light form, in turn, suggests vigilance, scrutiny, perhaps even anxiety—the psychological tax that accompanies outward dominance.
On a cultural level, Steroids taps into long-standing dialogues about the body, image, and the pressures of optimization. From bodybuilding and athletics to social media personas and corporate branding, the imperative to present perfected forms is both celebrated and critiqued. This diptych distills those pressures into a minimalist composition that rewards close observation. Its ambiguity is intentional, creating a space where viewers can project their own associations—be they of strength, distortion, or performance.
Ultimately, Steroids is a meditation on the aesthetics and ethics of enhancement. Through the careful alignment of unrelated imagery, it constructs a body that never fully exists, held together only by the viewer’s eye and the cultural cues embedded in its title. The result is a work that speaks to the architecture of aspiration—how we build it, how we light it, and what it might cost to sustain.
Essay written: May 2025