Cherry Hood

Cherry Hood illustrated JT LeRoy's 2005 novel Harold's End with a series of her distinctive portraits as well as a series of pictures of Harold, who gives the book its title - a snail. In the acknowledgements, LeRoy says "This is the first of what I hope will be a very long collaboration between us. Our next book is titled Labor."

Cherry Hood is an Australian artist, known for her portraiture. She won the 2002 Archibald Prize for her portrait Simon Tedeschi Unplugged.

In 2001 she was an Archibald Prize finalist with her water colour of art lecturer Matthÿs Gerber and in 2010 with her portrait of Michael Zavros.

Cherry Alexandra Hood was born in Sydney, and is the youngest daughter of Max and Helen Hood. She attained a Master of Visual Art at Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney 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 where she is represented by Diane Farris Gallery. Hood works in the unlikely medium of Watercolor to produce her oversized portraits, which are most frequently anonymous composite and not any actual person.