Also at the Frye is the ongoing show the edge becomes the center (through Jan. 5, 2025), which beckons the viewer with shadowy whispers. The large-scale, abstract, black-and-white works by Seattle artist Mary Ann Peters may at first look like animal fur or grain fields or misty landscapes. But soon it appears as if there’s something shifting underneath, a quiet rippling that suggests darker forces deep below. 

A second-generation Lebanese American, Peters created the paintings in this series (called this trembling turf) after researching archives in Lebanon, France and Mexico, where she glimpsed troubling stories muffled by the public accounting of historic events. Standing in the gallery alone, I could almost feel these stationary works pulsing, unable to contain the secrets hidden within. 

Also in the show is Peters’ impossible monument: gilded, a mysterious and glowing gold cabinet of curiosities, whose contents can be seen only from certain angles. Squint and you’ll find many locks and untouchable keys. 

There’s more mystery to be found at the National Nordic Museum, in the final weekend of the show A Place of Opportunity and Transformation (through Oct. 27). Featuring installations and short films by Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg, this show combines animated gore and cute creatures to bring repressed fears forward in the guise of whimsy.

Roq La Rue Gallery can always be counted on for pop-surreal spookiness, and that’s true of the current show Fantasmagoria (through Oct. 26). In this group show, featured artists delve into the trick-or-treat bag of the subconscious and pull out devilish aliens, ghostly figures, rats and one cuddly bat.

Meanwhile at SAM Gallery (attached to the Seattle Art Museum gift shop), you’ll find memento mori by Seattle artist Troy Gua in Beyond (through Nov. 2), where each skull is composed of slices of famous skulls made by artists from Leonardo da Vinci to Andy Warhol. 

And at Spectrum Gallery in Madrona, there’s something slightly goth in the vignettes staged by North Carolina photographer Heather Evans Smith, whose show Alterations (through Oct. 26) weaves surreal elements into crisp scenes of childhood memory.

See: a lock of hair threaded into a sewing machine, a zipper tracing the spine of a young girl, sharp pins pressed against lips. It feels like a fairy tale lurks behind the works, one in which the protagonist gets buried alive in colorful buttons.