Kayla Komito

Kayla Komito (aka Kay Hollingshead and Kay Komito) is a Tibetan thanka painter. She began showing her personal work, on the general theme of the spiritual feminine, with the San Francisco visionary artists in 1975. In 1997 and 1998 she completed a series of paintings of the Virgin Mary which were a bridge to her current work.

In 1999, at the request of a patron, and with the permission of her Tibetan lamas, she painted her first thanka. Since then she has worked exclusively on thanka commissions from patrons, using the traditional grid patterns, colors and iconic forms.

Kayla received her M.A. in Arts and Consciousness from John F. Kennedy University and currently teaches at Eastern Oregon University, along with her husband David Komito, who is a Buddhist teacher and author.