My Faded Memoirs 2012

.My Faded Memoirs & The Power of One.

Art Installation by Adida Fallen Angel (Adi Khavous)

SYNOPSIS:

Life is nothing but a collection of memories, fading away…
If you want to hold on to something you had better learn to let go.

‘My Faded Memoirs & The Power of One’ is my personal expression of the lost and found parts of my life. It’s a mix and match of ever growing and slowly fading styles and skills I accumulated over the years. It’s about the changing of times and the shifting of one’s awareness of the self.

The installation tells a story about the cycle of life, from birth to death and rebirth again. It’s a never-ending loop of creativity and decay.

CONCEPT:

For me everything starts from a blank center, slowly expanding, at once serene and terrifying. I never know where the piece will go or if I will ever finish it. My attention to detail and obsession for perfection always push me to find more and more things to do in it. Maybe I am just scared to finalize it and to find myself empty and clueless once again: a hidden part of me won’t let go. Maybe it is attachment or maybe I am just in love with the process itself: a unique place where one is overwhelmed and engulfed in the act of creating something exciting and personal. I do believe that the state of being lost in one’s creation is one of my favorite places to be and I will do whatever it takes to stay there.

The piece has transformed many times in my head and at some point it started to have a life of its own. That’s when I realized I needed to let go and let my heART take control, which shifted the piece’s significance in a tangible way.

‘My Faded Memoirs & The Power of One’ is truly about the power of inspiration, the power of one soul and it’s driving passion to produce something meaningful and the ability to connect to the rest of the universe, hoping that the piece will ripple widely and deeply into the spirits around it and perhaps show a common awareness to something that is bigger than all of us and maybe the source of everything valuable.

No matter how small a stone falls into the water, it will ripple. Our actions, feelings and thoughts have an effect on the world and the people around us. We, too ripple and for every action there is a reaction. Therefore I believe that the things we do with our time are important and can reach places we never dreamed of, and that is why I try to give my best and to shine in all directions, like the sun I don’t judge a book by its cover, I give light and warmth to whomever passes in and out of my life. I am no genius but I know that the power of one can bring light to the darkest places or burn it to extinction.

FUN FACTS AND OTHER NONSENSES:

The piece took more than 150 hours to make (Yep, no joke!).
I used about 13 books which I found in the garbage and different yard sales around my block (God bless them kind people who simply gave me old books once I told them it’s for the sake of art. I love Montreal).
The entire piece cost me about $100 to make (It’s amazing what you can do when you have no money. Endless creative ideas come to the struggling artist!).
It took 20 liters of homemade glue to attach the pages to the walls and floor (It took me 3 times to get the side wall right because of the windows).
There are more than 500 meters of fishing string up in the ceiling (most of the pages are from a fishing book about the ocean, how apt!)
I didn’t read any of the books! (Mainly because the pages are all mixed up and it hurts my neck to try and read then or find the right order! Not to mention most of them are in French and I suck in that field).
The dried flowers were already in the books when I found them (How cool is that?!?).
I needed 3 lighters to burn the pages individually in the ceiling (I also almost burned down the whole gallery and my eyebrows trying to blowout a page that refused to stop burning!).
I now have 3 new “working pants” and no normal pants (I also have glue in my hair that simply won’t get out no matter what I do).
One day I ran out of glue, then next day I ran out of fishing string and the next day I ran out of books. It was a very weird week.
The original concept was to hang printed photos of my artworks that the people can take home but sadly I didn’t have the money to print them (Thank God that didn’t happen!!!).
At first I just did the walls and it didn’t seem enough, so I added tons of little drawings and it still didn’t feel enough so I drew the sun and it didn’t feel enough so I colored it and it still didn’t feel enough so I outlined it and it didn’t feel enough so I did the ceiling and it still didn’t feel enough so I did the floor and finally it started to look like something cool. (So now you know!)
There are many little drawings and lines all over the installation which are very personal, if one should choose to take the time to read them all they will know me better than my mom (true story!).
I am a visual artist that spends most of his time in front of screens, after 4 weeks in the gallery working with my hands I found myself having hard time going back to just sitting and staring at screens, I can’t wait to start my next installation (Hint hint hint!).

Big love and admiration to the Fresh Paint gallery crew for supporting and pushing the Street Art scene to the next level. I am very lucky and honored to display my art here, it is not every day that you get a great location and trust from a gallery that lets you express yourself fully like I did, I couldn’t have done this without their help and support.