Artist dedicates heart sculpture on Las Vegas Strip

Artist Katy Boynton dedicated her sculpture depicting a giant steel heart to the Las Vegas community Saturday night outside Fashion Show mall.

Boynton, an artist from the San Francisco Bay Area, made the sculpture out of multiple pieces of steel wielded together to represent a heart, to honor those affected by the Route 91 Harvest festival mass shooting on Oct. 1, 2017. The sculpture was installed in 2018, but a plaque honoring the victims of the shooting was installed this week, Boynton said Saturday.

The 46-year-old has created another larger-than-life sculpture, but when the Strip shopping center reached out to purchase her original, Boynton instead decided to make a piece specifically for Las Vegas. The artwork, titled “Heartfullness Vegas,” is meant to represent healing, she said.

Now that the plaque is in place, Boynton said she hopes people walking on the Strip will understand why the sculpture was placed there.

“They’ll really see it as something that was really intended to be a symbol of healing,” she said.

Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.