Guidelines prompt artists to take cover

This article was published in The Sydney Morning Herald 29 January 2010

After her exhibition was closed and her house raided by police, the Archibald Prize-winning artist Cherry Hood made a pivotal decision. She would no longer depict nude children but would concentrate on portraits instead.

About a decade on, she has never returned to the subject that provoked the police action.

''I was just getting so much flak and distraction that it just wasn't worth it,'' Hood says. ''I wanted to have a discussion about art rather than always having a discussion about politics.''

The works were of naked girls aged about four upwards, onto which she painted penises. They were a comment on gender stereotyping, a theme that has long concerned Hood. All the images of girls were photographs in freely available publications.