Santa Monica

Muralist, activist, exporter of Chicano art to Soviet children in a foreign exchange program, the versatile Barbara Carrasco turns from the macro-scale of public walls to the micro-scale of intimate, tiny ink-and-pencil portraits of Chicano artists, writers and advocates in the series “Here Lies/Hear Lies.” Carrasco composed a questionnaire asking subjects to name “Objects to be buried with you and significance,” “Your most important contribution” and “How you’d like to be remembered” and got answers from such Chicano arts and letters figures as author and professor Rudy Acuna, artists Diane Gamboa and John Valadez, writer Max Benevidez.

Written responses run from the wordy and narcissistic to the poetic and prophetic, and Carrasco turns each into art by framing the sheets next to her portraits of respondents. She shows each painting (including a self-portrait) canopied in an open coffin, dressed and embellished according to the subject’s specifications. Some artists die in a tuxedo with tequila and favorite literature, others pass away with pan dulce (Mexican sweet bread), photos of loved ones and scented flowers. Each figure gets the same humorous Day of the Dead skeleton face placed on a delicate little pillow.

The works have a lighthearted charm and a very serious side. There’s as much concept and ideology as art in these powerful little pieces. Carrasco’s drawings mock the look and feel of personal graffiti tattooed on skin or doodled in high school folders. (B-1 Gallery, 2730 Main St., to April 30.)