Cherry Hood is an Australian artist well known for her haunting, large-scale images of faces. Working for preference in watercolour, which she allows to flow, bleed and drip, Cherry specialises in intense depictions of mostly anonymous subjects.
With a studio based in the Southern Tablelands of NSW, she has naturally embraced her landscape surrounds, sometimes incorporating it into her figurative works.
In 2000, Cherry Hood gained her Masters Degree from Sydney College of the Arts, The University of Sydney, with a thesis comprising an investigation of ‘gender politics, cultural mores and taboos surrounding the representation of the male body.’ The following year Cherry held her first solo exhibition at Mori Gallery, Sydney. Since then she has exhibited in countless solo and group shows around Australia with a gallery to represent her work in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Most notable, Hood enjoyed a sell-out solo show in New York at Dietch Projects in 2004. Cherry Hood’s international career gave her solo shows in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Toronto, Vancouver and Zurich.
Following her Archibald Prize win in 2002 for a portrait of Simon Tedeschi ‘unplugged’, she won the Kedumba Drawing Award in 2003. Cherry subsequently had works hung in the Archibald Prize on six occasions. Amongst her portrait subjects are painters Matthys Gerber, Ben Quilty, Michael Zavros and pianist, David Helfgott. Her portrait of Tedeschi is one of relatively few Archibald winners in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery. Hood’s works are in leading state, institutional, private and corporate collections around Australia and in public and private collections around the world.
EDUCATION
Master of Visual Art, Sydney College of the Arts, The University of Sydney
Bachelor of Visual Art, Honours, SCA, The University of Sydney
The National Art School, Fine Art, Painting
Accademia di Belle Arti, Perugia, Italy, Sculpture
St George Technical College, Fine Art
SOLO EXHIBITION
2010 Tim Olsen Gallery, Miniature Paintings Farm Life
2008 Tim Olsen Gallery, Sydney
2006 Now and Then, Schubert Contemporary, Qld
Lost to the Land, Arc One, Melbourne
2005 After Nature, After the Fact, Greenaway Gallery, Adelaide
Harold’s End, Varnish Gallery, San Francisco, USA
2004 Harold’s End, Deitch Projects, New York
Ayesha’s Child, Arc One, Melbourne
2003 Brüder 3, Diane Farris Gallery, Vancouver
Family Matters, Maroondah Regional Gallery, Victoria
2002 Brüder 2, Lehmann, Leskiw + Schedler, Zürich
Brüder 1, Lehmann, Leskiw + Schedler, Toronto
Stranger than Fiction, Mori Gallery, Sydney
2001 Interface, Mori Gallery, Sydney
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITION
2009 Archibald Prize, Finalist, Art Gallery NSW, The Domain, Sydney
2007 The Archibald Prize, Art Gallery of NSW, finalist
Hutchins Work on Paper Prize, (peoples choice award)
Whyalla Art Prize, (peoples choice award)
The Portia Geach Memorial Award, SH Ervin Gallery, (finalist)
2006 The Melbourne Art Fair, Arc One, Melbourne
The Toronto Art Fair, Lehmann, Leskiw + Schedler, Toronto
2004 Dobell Drawing Prize, Art Gallery of NSW (finalist)
Doug Moran Portrait Prize, NSW State Library Gallery (finalist)
The Summer Show, Arc One, Melbourne
2003 Art Cologne, Minor representation at Schedler, Lehmann, Leskiw
A Year In Art, S.H Ervin Gallery, Sydney
Kedumba Drawing Award, Kedumba Gallery (winner)
Arthur Guy Memorial Award, Bendigo (finalist)
Portrayal, Diane Farris Gallery, Vancouver
Sydney Art on Paper Fair, Akky van Ogtrop Fine Art, Sydney
Scrubbers Revenge, Penrith Regional Gallery, Penrith
More Real Than Life, Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne
Scratch The Surface, Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Canberra
Ned Kelly, SH Ervin Gallery
2002 The Archibald Portrait Prize, The Art Gallery of NSW (winner)
The Archibald Portrait Prize, Regional Touring Exhibition
The Doug Moran Portrait Prize (finalist) and Regional Touring Exhibition
Heimlich unHeimlich, curator, Juliana Engberg, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne
The Portia Geach Memorial Award SH Ervin Gallery, (Peoples Choice)
Contemporary Portraiture The National Portrait Gallery, Canberra
COLLECTIONS
Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
ArtBank, Sydney
Penrith Regional Gallery
Maroondah Regional Gallery
Muswellbrook Regional Gallery
Goulburn Regional Gallery
Hazelhurst Gallery