Hood works from live models, and from her own obsessive photographs. She focusses on how the human body is translated into images and represented in popular culture.
She writes, "What interests me is the scenario where there the audience is confronted with their own desire, where there is a sort of forced relationship between the image and the audience whether positive or negative. Realism is used to provoke a reaction, to provoke questions about gender stereotypes, identity, oppression, sexual and emotional violence.
"I mostly paint from photos: I choose to work with certain photographs because they contain information that I can build on. Although they help me start the picture they don?t help me finish it. Once I start working on a painting it takes on a life of its own. It becomes independent and autonomous, even of me, there is a sort of metaphysical transformation of the everyday snapshot into something much more than a replica of life.
"To summarise: I can start with a plan of the painting and/or a photo but there has to be more, more must happen for it to be a good painting. It must work on its own terms.?
Hood is based in Sydney, Australia
