*|FNAME|* ,
We'd like to share with you a story of beauty and new beginnings.
The creative relationship that Tom Everhart and Charles Schulz shared has no comparable in the world of art. And when Sparky (Schulz) passed away in 2000, Everhart – having lost both his friend, colleague and mentor – found himself searching for something that would replace the life and growth that their profound relationship once provided. That something would be Tahiti.
Everhart, and his wife Jennifer, now spend a third of their year in this Polynesian paradise. There, Tom spends his days painting outside on the same dock their home sits on, surrounded by crystal clear water and emerald green islands dotting the horizon. Tom's immersion in such intoxicating beauty has influenced and inspired his art. And, in the case of the Superfly, that inspiration cannot be more apparent.
While Tom paints in front of their home, his wife Jennifer will often begin her day with a splash as she jumps off from their dock and disappears into the water for hours. And, as Tom works at his easel under the equatorial sun, he often imagines her journey into a color filled paradise – a world where she dives from the top of waterfalls into deep clear lagoons, awash in bright translucent colors, where the tropical heat, itself, seems to drip from the sky above. This is the world of Superfly. Through his controlled style of drip painting, with Snoopy as the playful embodiment of Jennifer, Tom has perfectly expressed this place of beatific color and light.
In these new paintings, Snoopy is doing something we have never seen in paintings by either Everhart or Schulz: he is flipping into the air. With pure exuberance and free of any constraints, Snoopy has taken flight. The choice to set Snoopy so free in this place of fantasy came as a response to a very real situation in Tom and Jennifer's own lives. Together, they faced some dark days over the past couple of years: challenges that can rob you of whatever it is that gets you up in the morning. But once again, as with the passing of Sparky, Tahiti became a place to heal. Instead of letting negativity take Tom into a place of darkness, he chose to do just what we see Snoopy doing in these paintings: fly over them. Correction SUPERFLY over them.
It seems perfect that the first series of work to be published in the new partnership of Tom Everhart and Limelight Agency is such an inspiring expression of a personal renaissance.
 |
 |
 |
 |
Superfly
Snoopy by Everhart ©