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In RIDDLES VS JOKES, text becomes a way of questioning what abstraction is expected to do. Can an abstract painting be expressive and decorative at the same time, or does one diminish the other? The title proposes a related distinction: riddles use ambiguity to provoke thought, while jokes can move from wit and pleasure toward the crude, mean-spirited, or uncomfortable. Set against a field of accumulated marks and seductive color, the words complicate how the painting is read. Like the abstraction itself, they hover between pleasure and provocation, inviting the viewer to consider where decoration ends and meaning begins—and whether that boundary exists at all.