Title: ‘Ohana’

Series/Location: Kauai, I Love You, Kauai, Hawai’i

Size: 22×55 in (55.8×139.7cm)

Date Created: January 11th, 2025

Medium: Pigment on Museum Archival Parchment

Editions: Signed 1 of 7 Editions Unframed

Description: Beneath the surface of Hawaiian waters, a pod of spinner dolphins glides in formation—graceful, alert, and bonded. Captured in a single breath-hold, ‘Ohana reveals the quiet symmetry and familial intelligence of life below the waves. Rendered in black and white, the absence of color heightens the emotion, directing attention to gesture, proximity, and rhythm.

In Hawaiian, ‘ohana means family—not just in the nuclear sense, but in a wider spiritual and ecological one. The word carries a cultural weight that binds people, places, and species. Gillilan’s photograph honors this expanded kinship. The dolphins—mirroring one another as if moving through a shared mind—embody ancestral harmony and the deep intelligence of the sea.

This work invites the viewer into a meditative space of breath, motion, and connection—one that dissolves the line between human and more-than-human.