On The Edge

Barbara Carrasco is a Chicana artist and long-term activist whose practice moves between painting and public-facing work like posters, banners, and murals. Across more than five decades, she develops a concise visual system of bold color and sharp line, shaping images that pair personal memory with political urgency. Her work draws on print traditions and mass-media languages—advertising broadsheets, Japanese prints, and Pop art—while remaining grounded in specific histories. She has made large public commissions and street-scale projects, including mural work for major civic moments. In Carrasco’s paintings and installations, she often builds meaning through collage-like juxtapositions: portraits and text set against graphic motifs, figures bracketed or staged to heighten tension and attention. Her series-based approach can extend a single subject—activists, community leaders, children impacted by policy, or family history—into a broader political narrative. ---