Cherry Hood is an Australian artist, best known for her oversized paintings of children's faces.

Biography

Cherry Alexandra Hood was born in

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

in 1950, and is the great granddaughter of Australian photographer, Sam Hood. She attained a Master of Visual Art at Sydney College of the Arts,

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD) is a public university, public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in both Australia and Oceania. One of Australia's six sandstone universities, it was one of the ...

in 2000. Her thesis investigated gender politics in art and culture, cultural mores and taboos surrounding the representation of the male body. Hood had countless solo and group shows while at university in artist-run spaces and is now represented and shows regularly At Tim Olsen Gallery in Sydney, Heiser Gallery in Brisbane, Arc One Gallery in Melbourne. Her works have been collected by most major institutions in Australia and many corporate and private collections. Hood has had solo shows in New York, Zurich, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto and Vancouver. Hood prefers to work in watercolour, which she allows to bleed and drip, to produce her oversized paintings. Hood specialises in intense depictions which are most frequently anonymous composites with their own identities and not portraits of any actual person. She has become well known for her haunting, large-scale images of young boy's faces. Hood won the 2002

Archibald Prize The Archibald Prize is an Australian portraiture art prize for painting, generally seen as the most prestigious portrait prize in Australia. It was first awarded in 1921 after the receipt of a bequest from J. F. Archibald, J. F. Archib ...

for her portrait ''Simon Tedeschi Unplugged''. In

2001 The year's most prominent event was the September 11 attacks against the United States by al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror. The United States led a Participan ...

she was an Archibald Prize finalist with her water colour of art lecturer Matthÿs Gerber, in

2007 2007 was designated as the International Heliophysical Year and the International Polar Year. Events January * January 1 **Bulgaria and Romania 2007 enlargement of the European Union, join the European Union, while Slovenia joins the Eur ...

she was again a finalist with her water colour of Australian artist and social commentator Ben Quilty, and in

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

with her portrait of '' Michael Zavros''. In 2003 Hood won the Kedumba Drawing Award for her graphite, coloured pencil, watercolour drawing named ''Joshua''.

2002 Archibald Prize win

It was a photograph

picture An image or picture is a visual representation. An image can be two-dimensional, such as a drawing, painting, or photograph, or three-dimensional, such as a carving or sculpture. Images may be displayed through other media, including a proje ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

pianist A pianist ( , ) is a musician who plays the piano. A pianist's repertoire may include music from a diverse variety of styles, such as traditional classical music, jazz piano, jazz, blues piano, blues, and popular music, including rock music, ...

Simon Tedeschi that first caught Cherry Hood's eye. She went to one of his

concert A concert, often known informally as a gig or show, is a live performance of music in front of an audience. The performance may be carried by a single musician, in which case it is sometimes called a recital, or by a musical ensemble such as an ...

s, at the

Art Gallery of New South Wales The Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), founded as the New South Wales Academy of Art in 1872 and known as the National Art Gallery of New South Wales between 1883 and 1958, is located in The Domain, Sydney, Australia. It is the most import ...

, and then asked him to sit for her. "Although I don't normally do portrait/likenesses of people, I usually paint boys or adolescent males," she says. "Simon is only 20 and he has large pale blue eyes which you can almost see through, his look suits the way I make images. The eyes are always the focus of my paintings. I want them to reflect the gaze of the viewer and I am interested in the way his pale eyes both reflect light and have a differentiation between the pupil and iris. I met him and found he is particularly empathetic, easy going and very sensitive artistically. He saw my work and he understood what I was doing." Hood decided to paint him topless because, she says, "he is always portrayed in formal clothes and often with a piano as well. Images of him are usually more about his playing than about him as a person let alone him as a sensual body. Also, at that time I was finishing a series of huge portraits of boys for my next exhibition. Simon saw these works and agreed to pose for me in the same way. :''It was quite easy to portray him because he has strong characteristics. I think it does look like him, if not at his most rested. He keeps up a rigorous international performance schedule and lives between Sydney and London. He was suffering jet lag or in 'post concert letdown' when he sat for this painting. When he last saw the work he said, 'love the whiskers, remind me to stop over in Bangkok next time. She received a prize of $35,000 Australian dollars.

Illustrations

Cherry Hood illustrated JT LeRoy's 2004 novel ''Harold's End'' with a series of her distinctive portraits as well as pictures of Harold, the pet snail whose name gives the book its title. In the Acknowledgements LeRoy wrote, "This is the first of what I hope will be a very long collaboration between us. Our next book is titled ''Labor''." JT LeRoy, ''Harold's End''. San Francisco: Last Gasp, 2004, p. 94.

References

External links

*
TURNER GALLERIES... cherry hoodCherry Hood works , Olsen Gallery Sydney Australia
*http://www.dianefarrisgallery.com/artist/hood/archibald.html
Cherry Hood Art For Sale - Harvey Galleries
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hood, Cherry 1950 births Living people Archibald Prize winners Australian women painters 20th-century Australian women artists 20th-century Australian artists 21st-century Australian women artists 21st-century Australian artists Archibald Prize finalists