Tom Everhart
All-ee All-ee In-Free No.4, 2025
Acrylic on archival paper with deckled edges.
Hand-signed at the lower margin.
Framed and wall-ready.

Hide-and-seek, a familiar childhood game, is a way of life in Tahiti’s hot, humid climate. Beneath the water’s surface, fish survive by hiding among coral or angling their metallic bodies toward the sun to confuse predators above. An octopus below my overwater studio shifts color and reshapes itself into the illusion of two large eyes, while white parrots disappear among sunlit palm fronds to evade danger.

Seen from the deck of my Tahiti studio, this constant camouflage becomes a metaphor for Hide and Seek. The true game reflects how intellectual honesty, one’s authentic self, is often hidden to adopt a safer or more desirable image for personal gain or comfort. Hide and Seek – New Doggone It Paintings From Tahiti invites viewers to reconsider the games we are sometimes forced to play. For those familiar with my 35-year body of work, influenced by Charles M. Schulz, another layer of hide-and-seek emerges through the deliberate absence of expected Schulz imagery. — Tom Everhart

Tom Everhart – Off The Wall Gallery, Houston, Texas – Authorized Gallery.