paper, ephemera, and performance art

Karah Pino is a conceptual artist specializing in paper, ephemera, and performance art showcasing meditation as an art-form. She studied at the University of Washington School of Art with an emphasis on Metals graduating with a BA in Interdisciplinary Art in 1998.

Karah made custom jewelry and multi-media sculptures long before considering a pursuit of art in college. She began taking art classes as part of the requirements for a communications degree focused on advertising.  Inspired by the creative challenges, she found herself hooked.   After developing an allergy to metals she began exploring other materials and landed in the digital arts.  After college, she worked in film and television both in Seattle and Los Angeles while teaching as an art specialist to low income girls in an afterschool program.

Working with children, she re-discovered the joy and geometry of origami and began to focus on working with paper as a sculptural medium.  Her appreciation of paper folding led to an exploration of East Asian culture.  In 2002, she was inspired to study Chinese medicine and received a Masters of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine in 2008 also completing 1000 cranes.

Returning to Seattle in 2009, Karah developed a meditation course for the University of Washington Experimental College and helped to start a holistic healing collective using consent based decision making model as a creative collaboration process.  After the birth of her child in 2010, she continued working with practitioners and wellness centers developing implementation strategies for their vision, mission and aims and returned to web design and social media management from home.

In 2012, she joined the Mind Unwind Gallery as a teaching artist and exhibited Meditation as Art: The Sacred Shadow Self in June of 2013.