Following the Red Thread
Following the Red Thread: Myth, Memory, and Transformation in Humanography: Paramythia
Anyone passing by Washington Printmakers Gallery this October will notice the red thread. Spilling across the floor and winding around a series of large, printed figures in the front vitrine, it immediately captures the eye. Where will it take you? The only way to know is to follow it upstairs.
Echoing Ariadne's thread from Greek mythology, you are drawn into a world of stories, symbols, and transformation. Rather than leading toward a single destination, the thread becomes an invitation to wander, wonder, and discover unexpected connections along the way.
Inside the gallery, mythology becomes a visual language for understanding contemporary experience. In Humanography: Paramythia, Matina Marki Tillman's figures inhabit a world where transformation is constant and identity remains fluid. Birds, women, hybrid beings, and spectral presences appear throughout the exhibition, while recurring motifs and paired works encourage you to move back and forth between images, noticing connections and variations.
“Tales a Little Bird Told Me”
-Plate impression (right), and counterproof (left)
-Two-plate solar plate etching from India ink artist pen drawing on vellum, varied edition of 5
This approach is especially evident in the paired works Tales a Little Bird Told Me. Created from the same image yet transformed through different states of printing, the two works offer a window into the printmaking process itself. In printmaking, a counterproof is created when a freshly printed image transfers a second time, producing a work that is related to, yet distinct from, the original print. Unlike a ghost print, which is made from the faint residual ink left behind on a plate, a counterproof retains much of the strength and detail of the original impression while introducing changes in texture and a clear reversal of the image. Displayed together, the two versions reveal how a single matrix can generate multiple outcomes, highlighting the medium's capacity for variation, repetition, and transformation.
That exploration of connection continues in Ariadne Unraveled, where the red thread emerges as both material and visual motif. Referencing Ariadne's thread from Greek mythology, the work extends a line first introduced in the gallery window and carried throughout the exhibition. Here, thread, image, and narrative become intertwined, creating links between individual works and guiding the eye across the gallery. What first appears to be a simple strand gradually reveals itself as an organizing element within the exhibition as a whole.
The window installation prepares you for this journey. The red thread that first catches your attention from the street reappears throughout the exhibition, connecting the public world outside to the imagined worlds within. By the time you encounter Ariadne Unravelled, the thread has become more than a mythological reference. It serves as a visual device that ties the exhibition together, linking stories, images, and ideas from one work to the next.
The richness of Tillman's visual storytelling reflects a distinguished printmaking career. A member of Washington Printmakers Gallery since 2010, she has received numerous honors and awards, including First Prize at the National Association of Women Artists' National Small Works Exhibition and an Honorable Mention in Transformations: Figures of Our Other Selves at Mills Pond Gallery. Her work has also earned Excellence in Graphics awards from the Hudson Valley Art Association and recognition at the University of Wisconsin Parkside National Small Print Exhibition. Tillman has exhibited nationally and internationally, including at New York City's National Arts Club, the Museum of Printing History in Houston, Reagan National Airport's Gallery Walk, and London's Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers at Bankside Gallery.
In Humanography: Paramythia, mythology is neither distant nor fixed. It remains alive, adaptable, and deeply human. By the time you return to the front window, the red thread that first invited you inside has taken on new meaning, connecting the works into a larger visual narrative that continues to unfold as you move through the gallery.
Follow the red thread to Washington Printmakers Gallery and step into Matina Marki Tillman's Humanography: Paramythia, an exhibition where mythology, memory, and transformation intertwine through print, image, and story.
All images, courtesy of WPG.
Visit the Exhibition
Humanography: Paramythia, October 1-25, 2026
Washington Printmakers Gallery, 1675 Wisconsin Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20007
Gallery Hours: Thursday & Sunday: 12:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.; Friday & Saturday: 11:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Learn More
Artist Page: Matina Marki Tillman