Drawing inspiration from the traditions, philosophies and mythologies of both her Korean and Hungarian heritage, Reiner creates otherworldly environments that evoke the nebulous magic of dreams and recollections. She works with a personal language of symbols to rearrange memories and metaphors into images which join light and dark to shape something new altogether–something in between and without definition. Contending with these themes of liminality, the subconscious, and the artists’ intergenerational history, Eternal Garden comprises a series of superabundant edens, captured at the threshold between day and night. 

Amid a meadow of gem-like hollyhocks, swallowtail butterflies flit serenely over a fairy-ring of dancing flames in Desire’s Ascent. In Song About Eternity, a tiger approaches an oasis in an infinite red brick landscape as two magpies look on from the tops of abundantly flowering magnolia trees. There is a magnetic, luminous clarity to Reiner’s imagery that might be heavenly if not for the brief moments of dissonance alluding to the uncanniness of dreams. 

Jieun Reiner is a painter and interdisciplinary artist living and working in Santa Fe, NM. She graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in Printmaking in 2010. Her work explores themes of identity, liminality, and the multiracial experience. 

For more information please email hi@smokethemoon.com.