KM Eng
writer. artist.
poet. painter.
painting my way
to something true.
KM Eng
writer. artist.
poet. painter.
painting my way
to something true.
About the Art(ist)
Writer. Artist.
Poet. Painter.
My whole life I've painted anything that would sit still long enough for me to colorize it. Color, form and line have always thrilled.
The mid-century modern aesthetic, for as long as I can remember, has inspired and intrigued. Growing up in the 70s and 80s, my maternal grandmother's city-scape painting, on the wall as I entered the hallway to my bedroom, nodded from beyond the grave. (She painted it in the last year of her short life.) Every day the painting spoke to me as my grandmother never could. I loved its tippy building-like rectangles, its odd-angled swath of road, its sweet moon.
I paint in mixed media acrylic, working energetically to maintain a consistent voice, which often circles around an idea, a scene or a stanza in a poem.
Enjoy. Look into the painting. I hope you see your own story.
K. M. Eng
The Writer
Aim for truth, whether it's fiction, a poem, a memoir or visual art, in compelling work, there's something emotionally true. Excavating cultural biases and digging under what seems obviously true, these are my superpowers. After writing a passage I may reread and ask: Is that as true as I can make it? How does that serve the story, the point, the protagonist?
Write and paint from the body: I write to discover what I think, to pen new forms that reflect how living in this time feels in my body.
Creatively meditate. Creatives use all sorts of hacks to call in the muse or simply get into a focused creative mood. Me, I sit. As in meditate. I play in the liminal, in-between states of consciousness using ancient yogic meditations to not only chill out the noise, but to access deeper creative states.
Live smaller to create bigger. I zen-ified my scene with a minuscule mortgage, a well-paying part time day job and a tiny purple writing shed! My burden is light so I have the freedom to create.
