My new series, Heart Island, is in honor and memory of the unclaimed pandemic victims in mass burials on Hart Island, New York. It was formerly called Heart island in 1775 because of the island’s heart-like shape. The ‘e’ was dropped shortly after. This series hopes to add the heart back into this dehumanizing process. To be unclaimed does not mean that their lives do not matter. My work houses stories of exile, displacement and migration, of rupture and suture, of survival and loss. Rather than disintegrating, the subjects in my work transform into other subjects, suggesting metamorphosis and reinvention through drawing. The subjects transcend their confines, taking flight. The more I immersed myself in making these abstract ink drawings, the more four interconnected heart shapes emerged, symbolizing my three siblings, Alexander, Pericles, Demetra and me, connected eternally by love and loyalty. Our father is a retired Cardiologist and we lost our beloved brother Alexander to sudden cardiac death. In the words of Rumi, “Only from the heart can you touch the sky.”
Aphrodite Navab, Heart Island, 2020. Ink on paper. 9 x 12 inches.
Aphrodite Navab (born Isfahan, Iran) is an artist of Iranian and Greek descent currently based in New York City. Her art has been featured in over 150 exhibitions and is included in a number of collections including Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the Lowe Art Museum, the Harn Museum of Fine Arts and more.