Jieun Reiner: Artist's Statement

Artist's Statement
Jieun Reiner

If You Find Yourself in the City of Laurels

Upon entering the city, you might notice a silence. It might weigh on your shoulders as if the sky itself has begun to sag. The city is sparse, tranquil. There is an overwhelming green. Laurels may lay draped on the branches of trees, they may hang loosely from clothing lines. Some may bury themselves upside-down so that only their feet, sticky with honey, sometimes donning red, stick upward from the surrounding soil.

Laurels run in size from three inches to sixty yards. Some span the lengths of entire football fields. On some days one may encounter as many as thirty Laurels on a walk home from the grocery store. On some days, none.

Laurels are dressed in blues in the spring and yellows in late winter, in shades and hues one through ninety. Their color choices stem from a fervent desire to live in defiance of the weather. Laurels crave contrast.

Often Laurels install themselves in a place to alter its visual structure. A Laurel may sit on a bench that is not colorful enough, or perhaps too rectangular. They may arrange their limbs into circular contortions. They may weave their veins into nests. A Laurel might square herself in a vegetable garden with not enough geometry. She might cube herself in sea foam, hold herself triangular whilst rooted to a telephone pole. You will never see a Laurel move. When the wind blows violently, she might tremble with the weeds.

Laurels ache for change. Laurels dream of shifting states of matter. A Laurel may try to evaporate, to melt. Laurels hold relics of once living things to their faces in an attempt to become something else. Some Laurels have no faces. Others have two, but hide them carefully, braiding them delicately between pale saplings. On these trees are soft smudges caused by the acidic residue of past Laurels. Laurels pine for isolation. The reasons for this are undetermined. A Laurel is rarely seen with another. Herds of Laurels have been rumored. Concrete evidence does not exist.

Some Laurels are like threadbare blankets, some like jars of jam. Some Laurels have star shaped noses; some have cones for eyes. Some Laurels spend their entire lives recreating themselves into imitations of extinct creatures and some into whatever it is they believe is the most alive. The best way to approach a Laurel is from behind.