Applying the paint with the brush is just 10% of creating art, painter Mark Rothko tells his assistant in “Red,” onstage in a satisfyingly taut production from The Ensemble Company.

One of the art standouts at Salon Art + Design is “Cadmium Red Medium and Deep” (2015), by Ted Kurahara, a 98-year-old Japanese American painter — it glows and flickers like an ethereal fire ...