Poppy Koning is a Dutch abstract horror artist working primarily with acrylics and ink. She only incorporates her own blood in selected highly exclusive artworks. Her work is an alchemy of feelings, passion and inner worlds, translating what she experiences within into raw, visceral and emotionally charged paintings.

Through abstraction, she gives form to what cannot always be expressed through words or literal imagery. Her work embraces intensity, visceral imagery and raw emotion while simultaneously exploring beauty, empowerment and the deeply human desire to feel at home. In highly exclusive artworks her own blood becomes a part of this process, adding another physical layer to an already deeply personal practice.

Her paintings are created to pull the viewer in, to lure them closer and invite them to lose themselves in the details, and perhaps leave them with that quiet feeling of recognition, a deep breath, a sense of being home.

Basking blissfully in the bubble that I created is my favorite thing to do, and maintaining that beautiful bubble of bliss is my life devotion. In that bubble a lot of events are happening because you might see blood, gore and dark paintings, my personality is quite the opposite. It is pink that I like, glitter that I love and baking in the kitchen is a favorite way to spend my time, besides the studio of course.

Hi, my name is Poppy Koning. I am born and raised in this beautiful little country called the Netherlands – still a proud resident! – and born on April 20th. Speaking about being Dutch, it isn’t the only language I am fluent in because English is the second one, all thanks to the NFL that I have been watching since 2011 when the Green Bay Packers stole my heart. Besides that I make the best gyoza but also amazing layered cakes and I am great at finding lucky clovers. I have so many of them including clovers with five leaves and two with six leaves – yes, they exist!

But I do love me some gore, blood and macabre things too. The fascination for blood was always there, the color lured me in and so did the variety of texture in the human material. One day this showed up in my art because I paint from within and the horror style developed throughout the years. Most of it by accident, but looking back on it now, it was always meant to be. Abstract is my way to go, it is the way I can express myself fully without limitations. I paint what I feel and let that flow out onto the canvas in front of me. It is dark art. It is abstract art. It has a horror touch.

When you lay my paintings next to each other you will see the story but also the repeating pattern that comes back again and again, alchemizing the feelings within. Whether that may be good feelings or contrasting ones, I always paint about stories and experiences, feelings and emotions. Mostly how they made me feel. Actually, always how they made me feel. I paint my perception of the human experience through an abstract horror lens. It is raw, vulnerable and powerful. When I paint, I can breathe and I always hope that the soul observing my work can feel the same. A moment where we can rest, where we can just be.

The question I get a lot, how did I get into painting? I didn’t wake up one day and decide to become a painter. I picked up my brushes during a dark period of my life to cope with the ugly aftermath of Lyme disease combined with a fried nervous system which led to a burnout accompanied by massive panic attacks. In order to survive that time I decided one day to make a painting and well, here we are! Many years later, with my focus on a wonderful future but I’ll always be thankful for that period of my life. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been a painter.

It made me launch my first collection in 2019 called ‘REDRUM’ and it also included my very first human blood painting. The collection was all about me opening up about my mental health struggles, the shame that came with it but also the dreadful journey itself followed by the positive transformation that happened within. I started doing the inner work, learned about mindfulness and that eventually led to regulating my nervous system.

And that is always happening in my bubble of bliss, regulating that system within. I love introspection. I journal daily. And I can be found on my yoga mat quite often. Nothing feels better than a calm mind and a safe body to live in. Painting is a part of regulation. If I don’t paint, I get cranky. I am aware of it. I don’t like it either but it is the truth. I gotta paint! I am a very passionate person, I do everything with full force and I am creative in all areas of my life. I always blame it on being an artist but it is actually my personality, haha!

The other question I get most is, human blood paintings, how did that happen? Well, it wasn’t my idea in the first place. I always like to shield behind that. When I first started out with my bloody paintings people kept telling me to paint with my own blood. I was like, ‘hell no, you’re not getting my blood.’ Then the suggestions kept pouring in and one day I saw it as a sign. I looked into it, thought it would be a one-time thing until in 2023 the urge popped up again. This time much stronger.

When I made the second painting I realized it was never meant to be a one-time thing. I have never felt closer to home, to being myself when I was running my bare hands through my own blood on a canvas that was hanging on my own wall. The closeness. The vulnerability. The empowerment. Gosh, every single time I use my own blood as a medium in my paintings, something clicks for me.

There was a lot of shame around this as well, I had to learn how to embrace this part of me because a lot of people told me I was crazy. It took me a lot of introspection, a lot of journaling and one decision to be totally fine with that. I’d rather be the crazy one because at least I am happy. Now I fully embrace it. It is who I am. I love it. Hello, my name is Poppy and I paint with my own blood. Loud and proud. Nobody gets in between me and my sacred practice.

And yes, it is true that my human blood paintings are scarce. They are limited and so is my blood supply but the most important reason why I won’t make more than my age, is because they are meant to be savored, not devoured by the masses. If you want to know more about my human blood art, check my FAQ or dive into the many posts I wrote about this on my Patreon.

“I hope that my art makes people feel at home, at home within themselves, at home with who they are. The feeling I always strive for even subconsciously is the release of a deep breath after a long day, because that’s how I feel when I put my hands in the paint, the brush on the canvas or my blood in my paint mixture.”
– Poppy Koning

I am quite a yapper, I love to yap about my work, I love to take you with me behind the scenes and show you closeups from paintings like we are on a scavenger hunt together – because my paintings have that effect, even I discover new details in artworks I worked on for months, haha! – but I do talk about my work on Patreon. I take you with me on the journey of them, show you parts of my studio and give you insights on how I work. This is also where I go deeper into the meaning behind artworks called background information posts. It is my little safe haven with my own inner circle for the people who are interested.

And speaking about being interested, are you interested in my original paintings? You can find all my original artworks in my shop from the bloody paintings to the human blood paintings to other artworks I created. If you want to work with me, check out my media page. Want to become a collector? Start exploring the originals in my shop and who knows, maybe you will find one that calls your name!

x Poppy