Mike's adventures in art: The Flying Woman, Back Home & Frankenstein

If you're looking for tips on how to experience art in the Seattle area, you're in the right place. In this weekly post, KUOW arts reporter Mike Davis has suggestions for what to do around Seattle over the weekend so you can have your own adventures in arts and culture.

VISUAL ART:

"Flying Woman: The Paintings of Katherine Bradford", at the Frye Art Museum is my pick of the week. This exhibit is stunning. The large canvases filled with colors that pop greet you as soon as you enter. I can picture Bradford, and 80-year-old woman up on a ladder, because she works without an assistant, painting on these huge canvases. The images of life, and family, and the themes of light illuminating the dark reverberate throughout her work. This exhibit is in chronological order, and takes viewers on a journey through Bradford's creations as time progresses in her life and in society. The section titled "motherhood" drew me in. These images feel so personal and depict families with clever use of colors, sometimes using purples that pop over dark backgrounds to highlight portions of the pieces.

Flying Woman is showing at the Frye Art Museum until May 14

"Back Home", at the Wing Luke Museum was a treat. This partnership between Wing Luke and Paradise Avenue Souf celebrates Black and Asian solidarity through murals, paintings, and video images. This collaboration brings together talented artists in our city and highlights art coming from south Seattle. The exhibit includes a 13-minute video, "the manifestation," that shows artists as they connect with their environment and explore the ancestry and heritage that made way for the creative minds of Ari Glass, Harry Clean, and Gavin Amos.

And as a bonus — there is so much to see at Wing Luke! While I came to see "Back Home," I stayed much longer than I intended. There are too many exhibits to name here, but I saw Bruce Lee, sculptures, murals, artifacts, and literature that celebrated Asian culture and told stories of artists and people from our community.

Back Home is showing at Wing Luke Museum until Fall 2023

THEATRE:

Manual Cinema's "Frankenstein" is at the Moore Theatre for one night only! This show is a must-see, and it is difficult to describe, which is a big part of why it is a must-see. It crafts a story from biography of Mary Shelley, who wrote the original novel, into a fresh story that blends live actors on stage, film, music, shadow-puppets, and creepy lighting, to create a unique experience. As we are in the last days of the Pacific Northwest's grey winter, this show is a great way to have one last dark experience before we head into spring.

Manual Cinema's "Frankenstein" plays at the Moore Theatre March 7 at 7:30 p.m.