The concept of humanity is defined as the quality or condition of being human; human nature. Cherry Hoods artworks are highly detailed portraits almost haunting due to the realistic way she captures a face. Cherry hood has portrayed the human species using young adolescent boys; this is shown in the two artworks “Serenity” and “Butterfly Kiss”.
Cherry Hood was born in Sydney, 1959. The Australian, Sydney based artist lives currently in Goulburn, NSW. She studied and achieved a Master of Visual Art at the Sydney College of the Arts in 2000. Hood is most famous for her win in 2002 for the Archibald prize with her portrait of the young Australian pianist, Simon Tedeschi. Hood is renowned for her pigment and watercolour paintings of young adolescent…show more content… Specific to the artist is her use of watercolour paint which is a medium usually utilised in the use of anonymous free flowing compositions, this adds a sense of ambiguity to her work and indeed the figures themselves. Hood sometimes works from photographs in magazines, where there are female models as young as 13 dressed making them look 21. She questions the double standards — if a boy were dressed up in the same erotic way, it would shock. The lips seem to be bruised adding a subversive element and the wash of watercolour hinting that innocence can simply be lost and destroyed, challenging the innocence of youth. The individuals Hood depicts stare straight at the viewer forcing them to make eye contact and subsequently drawing you into a dynamic and sometimes even an emotional relationship. Her focus on the eyes create an almost hypnotic, possessed edge to her paintings, like a trademark that she has become known around the world for. Her portraits are not so much a direct representation or likeness as her subject and is generally an inspiration and the face in the painting, although similar, takes on a whole new identity by changing features to create her intended meaning and mood. By looking in the eyes and trying to read the expression not only shows Hood’s skill in depicting the almost photographic realism, the eyes’ textures and reflections, but also at her ability to suggest emotion. There is beauty but also unbearable sadness in this artwork. The painting was created by pouring watercolour from small buckets onto huge sheets of heavy French paper, which using her hands and large brushes Hood ‘attacked’ at the paper, finally using extremely fine brushes to meticulously paint the eyes and mouth in photo-realistic
