I believe it is the responsibility of the artist to bear witness to injustice and to hold a mirror to and shape reality. My art enters the public domain through the use of billboards, prints and murals to educate the public and to create debate and awareness about important issues concerning the future of our planet. A lot of my work involves printmaking. Printmaking has had a long history of being tied to political movements, social justice movements and revolutions. I use my art to explore such themes as women's rights, animal rights, climate change, war, the media and environmental issues.
Karen Fiorito is an award winning activist, artist and curator residing in Southern California. Her artwork has been exhibited internationally and featured in major publications such as Art in America, Hyperallergic, Art Forum and ArtNews and featured in such books as American Women Artists in Wartime, Paper Politics: Socially Engaged Printmaking Today and The Design of Dissent. Fiorito has received grants from Change, Inc., the Puffin Foundation, the Pollination Project, A Well Fed World and LUSH Cosmetics for her public art projects, including the billboard campaign ‘Got Drought?’ which toured from 2015 - 2021. She has curated of many art exhibitions, including Evolution/Revolution: The Interconnectedness of All Beings (2011), Indivisible: United We Stand, Divided We Fall (2020) and The Absent Referent (2022). Her prints are in the permanent collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the U.S. Forest Service, the Center for the Study of Political Graphics and Self Help Graphics. She holds a M.F.A. from Arizona State University and a B.F.A. from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and is the President of the Los Angeles Printmaking Society (LAPS). She is also a member of the California Society of Printmakers (CSP), the Los Angeles Art Association (LAAA) and a Board member at The Artists Gallery (TAG).