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Home » Barbara Carrasco

Barbara Carrasco

Painter, Muralist

Los Angeles, CA

Instagram @barbara.carrasco.98

My paintings and murals reflect and document personal and social connections to the historical role they play in society while defying stereotypes and inspiring young people to achieve higher goals.

Barbara Carrasco (b. 1955, El Paso, Texas) is a painter and muralist based in Los Angeles, CA. She has a BFA from UCLA (1978), an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts (1991), and an Honorary Doctorate of Art from CalArts (2025).

In 2024, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County permanently installed Carrasco’s acclaimed mural, L.A. History: A Mexican Perspective, 1982 (16 feet x 80 feet) in the museum’s new Welcome Center structure.

In 2019, she was commissioned by Sète-Los Angeles to paint Agnès Varda – Inspiration, 2020 an on-site mural, in Sète, France. Carrasco and her mural received international attention via Le Monde and other major European media outlets.

Her paintings and drawings have been exhibited throughout the U.S., Europe, and Latin America: Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery (2015), Library of Congress (2024); Smithsonian American Art Museum (2020); Vincent Price Art Museum/ELAC (Mid-CareerSurvey Exhibition, 2008), Museo José Luis Cuevas, Mexico (2006), The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA (1996); Armand Hammer Museum (1995,1999); Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art (1988).

Her work has been featured in numerous publications: The Art Newspaper (2024), Hyperallergic (2024), Ms. Magazine (2008), Los Angeles Times, New York Times, USA Today, Artforum, High Performance, and Flash Art. Carrasco is a Board Member of the Dolores Huerta Foundation (DHF). She created numerous mural banners for the United Farm Workers Union (1976-1991).

In 2008, The Girl Scouts of America created a merit patch based on Carrasco’s image of Dolores Huerta. Dolores, 1999, screen print on paper is in the permanent collection at Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Her original mural sketches and drawings are included in the Permanent Collection at the Library of Congress, Washington D.C. (1989). A permanent collection of her papers has been established and archived at Stanford University Special Collections Mexican American Manuscript Collections (1996).

Her oral history is archived at the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution (1999).

Selected Works

This is an 80 foot-long mural chronicling the history of Los Angeles woven into a woman's hair. The woman’s face is on the far left of the mural and she holds a large feather with her left hand and rests her face on her right palm. Her hair flows to the right and provides the framework for the chronological history of Los Angeles from left to right, from prehistoric times to the 20th century. Individual scenes appear in frames formed between locks of her hair.
This is a painting of a “girl with scorched skin in L.A.” She has her back toward the viewer and looks back with a side eye profile. She is brunette and wears a purple top with a strap falling down, revealing very distinct sunburn lines on her back and arm. She is on an all blue background with five faint stylized flying bird details.
This painting is a self portrait of the artist Barbara Carrasco. She wears a pale yellow top and a pale pink apron. She is arching her back, her left hand is on her neck, and she holds a large green paint brush in her right hand above with faint paint details trailing behind her. She is on a soft lavender painted background.