elc team
The gallery Dio Horia is pleased to announce the exhibition “Pineptran Istreyas & Αχινός”, a solo presentation by Chamorro artist Gisela McDaniel, a member of the Indigenous community of Guåhan (Guam) and representative of its diaspora. The exhibition opens on Saturday, October 18, at 5:00 p.m. at Dio Horia Acropolis, in the presence of the artist.
The exhibition features a new body of work created during McDaniel’s residency in Greece, marking a meaningful expansion of her artistic practice through the intersections of cultures, histories, and geographies. McDaniel’s work reclaims portraiture as a space of healing, collaboration, and decolonial storytelling. Working primarily with women, non-binary individuals, and people who identify with femininity, the artist approaches portrait-making as an act of resistance and restoration. The figures she portrays are not merely subjects but collaborators who share their personal stories through conversation and sound – a process that centers the personal voice and self-determination.
Deeply rooted in her Guåhan heritage, McDaniel’s practice challenges the colonial and patriarchal gaze embedded in the history of art. By giving form to voices and stories that have been historically silenced or objectified, her works contribute to the rewriting of art history from a feminist and Indigenous perspective. The artist traces connections between ancestral navigation, survival, and the emotional labor of contemporary femininities – mapping lines that link trauma and transcendence, loss and reclamation, the personal and the political.
Created during the gallery’s residency program, “Pineptran Istreyas & Αχινός” reflects McDaniel’s dialogue with Greek mythology, natural forces, and the shared languages of island life. At the beginning of her stay in Greece, the artist spent time in Athens, where she met and collaborated with three Greek participants. Their stories and voices have been integrated into two of the paintings in the exhibition, expanding her ongoing exploration of healing and intercultural storytelling.
“It’s the first time I’ve ever painted on an island, and that feels special,” McDaniel says. “I paint outdoors, surrounded by wind, sand, and water. This exhibition feels more primal than any other I’ve done.” Every morning, McDaniel would visit the sea to observe its movements and moods. Water-a long-standing symbol of healing in her work-became both companion and teacher. “A healer in Guåhan once told me that the most restorative places are the sea and the mountain top,” she recalls. “Here, I had the chance to experience both.”
Mythologies-both Greek and Chamorro-serve as a meeting point and a source of inspiration for McDaniel. She draws from stories at two ends of the world: Galatea and Pygmalion, Demeter and Persephone, Circe, Ariadne, and Medea, as well as Pacific legends such as Sirena, the girl who transforms into a mermaid, and The Story of the Net, in which women save Guåhan from destruction. The figure of Sirena holds a central place, as the artist connects her with the Greek Sirens-both born from the meeting of sea and sky, symbolizing transformation and consequence. In the exhibition, these myths are reinterpreted not as tales of punishment or virtue, but as narratives of survival, change, and resistance. In one of the paintings, a mermaid and a winged figure coexist, linking the mythic traditions of the Pacific and Greece within a shared horizon. “In both traditions there’s the common thread of transformation and consequence,” McDaniel notes. “I wanted to bring these myths together, allowing each to retain its own voice.”
The landscape of Mykonos directly shaped the materials and palette of McDaniel’s new works. She gathered seashells from the shore, fishing nets from the sea, and old jewelry from Athens’ markets-objects she wove, suspended, or embedded into her compositions. “Jewelry has become significant to me as a language of identity and memory,” she notes. “I disassemble it and allow it to become something else-like leaves scattered across the surface of the paintings.” Patterns of nature and the elements-fire, stone, shells, wind, and water-flow through the works, forming what she calls “a kind of living, responsive ecosystem.”
Her encounters with the natural world of Mykonos-its tides, winds, snails, snakes, and bougainvillea-filtered into this new body of work. The artist recalls the Chamorro name for the flower, which translates to “pain without a beloved,” a phrase she finds both humorous and profound. Through such subtle observations, the exhibition unfolds as an ecology of myth, memory, and matter, connecting islands across oceans through shared experiences of beauty, danger, and renewal.
Some of the paintings are double-sided, their gazes shifting between presence and absence; others include eyes-some do not. “I’m interested in how the gaze changes when something looks back at you-even if it has no eyes,” she says.
The exhibition also features a sound work in which McDaniel’s voice intertwines with those of others—continuing her practice of integrating sound and voice into painting, creating spaces of empathy and collective witnessing.
Gisela McDaniel’s process is deeply collaborative and materially rich. Each portrait begins with an extended dialogue between the artist and the sitter, which is recorded and later integrated into the work through motion sensors. The use of this technology invites the viewer into an intimate encounter: as one approaches the painting, the voice of the portrayed subject fills the space, dissolving the boundary between artwork and witness.
Her oil and acrylic paintings are often adorned with objects, jewelry, fabrics, and materials that belong to-or are chosen by-her collaborators. These elements act as tangible extensions of identity and memory, blurring the lines between image, relic, and body. The embedded materials-sometimes family heirlooms, natural elements, or everyday objects-transform the portraits into multidimensional archives of lived experience. Through this combination of texture, color, and sound, McDaniel creates what she describes as “a physio-sonic threshold” around her subjects-a sensory perimeter that both protects and empowers them.
Her vivid palette, dense brushstrokes, and multilayered compositions radiate vitality and resilience, offering an alternative to the static, objectifying traditions of portraiture.
Short Biography
Gisela McDaniel (b. 1995, Bellevue, Nebraska) lives and works in New York. She holds a BFA from the University of Michigan (2019). Her work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions at institutions such as the Ogunquit Museum of American Art (USA), Pilar Corrias Gallery (London), The Mistake Room (Los Angeles), ICA Boston, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and The FLAG Art Foundation (New York).
Her paintings are included in major public and private collections worldwide, including the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, the Pérez Art Museum Miami, the Frye Art Museum (Seattle), the Blenheim Art Foundation (UK), Kadist (San Francisco), and the Aïshti Foundation (Beirut), among others.
McDaniel is a recipient of the Kresge Artist Fellowship and has participated in international residencies such as The Church Sag Harbor (New York), Art Explora (Paris), and Fountainhead (Miami). “Pineptran Istreyas & Akhinós” marks her first exhibition in Greece.
The exhibition’s title merges words from two languages and cultures: “Pineptran Istreyas” means “fossilized star” in the Chamorro language, while Akhinós, written in Greek, translates to “sea urchin”-a dual reference linking sky and sea, memory and protection.
