The Block Paintings are organized according to count and transitions from white to black. In the ‘Querelle and Bowie’ and ‘Querelle Hierarchy’ paintings, the ‘color’ of each block typically represents an achromatic alphabet where A is white, Z is black, and all other letters are proportionally gradated in between. In these paintings, excerpts from David Bowie tunes are superimposed over vertical stacks of blocks (alphabet as number) that ‘spell’ out character names from Genet’s Querelle de Brest. Here, a gender-bending text is superimposed over fictional characters, presenting complications with identity. In the ‘White Rules/Black Rules’ paintings, two ‘morally opposite’ words (painted in chromatic alphabet) flank the sides of each painting while associated white-to-black sets of blocks offer a count of the corresponding letter’s place in the order which it falls in the alphabet (A=1, B=2, C=3, etc.), thereby creating a mechanical fluidity from one opposing word to the other (two sides of the same coin, as it were).
