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Cherry hood is an Archibald prize winner who has artworks in many important Australian art collections, including the Art Gallery of NSW, National Gallery of Australia, Artbank, and several regional art galleries. Cherry has become well known for her haunting, large-scale images of faces.

As viewers, visiting a Cherry Hood exhibition is a voyeuristic experience. The huge eyed faces follow you around the exhibition space, drinking you in and forcing you to maintain eye contact. You feel as though you have intruded on quiet thoughts, perhaps on a dark moment recalled. There are no smiles, and the eyes have a bruised outlook, too knowledgeable for their brief years.

During her 20 year painting career Hood has had countless solo exhibitions and is often included in group and theme exhibitions at museums and institutions. She has exhibited at Tim Olsen Gallery in Sydney, Heiser Gallery in Brisbane, Arc One Gallery in Melbourne, Turner Gallery in Perth and Greenaway Gallery in Adelaide. Hood has also had solo shows in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto, Vancouver and Zurich. Her works are in many private collections in Australia and overseas and many of the State Museum Galleries in Australia have collected her works. Her works are very well represented in major Corporate Collections.

Hood works in the unlikely medium of watercolour, her paintings are most frequently anonymous composite portraits. Since her move to the Southern Tablelands of NSW Hood has embraced the landscape and most often incorporates it into her works.
Hood was the winner of the 2002 Archibald Prize, the most prestigious painting award in Australia, with her portrait of the young pianist Simon Tedeschi. Hood was one of seven women winners in the long history of the award. Hood had been a finalist the year before with her very first entry in Archibald Prize. The work - a watercolour on paper – of her brother in law the artist Matthÿs Gerber was remarkably the first watercolour on paper to be hung in the Archibald. Later Hood painted David Helfgott, Ben Quilty and in 2010 Michael Zavros.

Cherry Hood attained a Master of Visual Art at Sydney College of the Arts after attaining an undergraduate degree at the National Art School. She is passionate about art education and often describes her experience at Art School as a “gift”. She tries to give back a little by teaching and conducts workshops and gallery talks.

In Sydney, Cherry exhibits at Olsen-Irwin Gallery in Paddington.