Peter Stichbury’s fascination – not to say preoccupation – with perfection is clear. From the first, his work has been characterised by a remarkable smoothness and exactness of execution, facilitated by the acrylic paints he frequently employs. Stichbury’s interest in the French academician Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres will come as no surprise to those familiar with the work of the two artists. In addition to an exquisite precision and care of technique, Ingres’ oeuvre demonstrates a preference for flawless skin, sensual glossiness and exaggeration of features entirely in sympathy with Stichbury’s style. Like Ingres, Stichbury takes idealisation to the extreme, creating likenesses that stretch credibility and comfort. His portraits suggest the surrealism of the airbrushed photograph, the dis-ease of the high-fashion creature. Stichbury’s achievement is to simultaneously celebrate and question the immaculate. Dating from 1999, Kirsten is an early work by Stichbury, exuding little of the whimsy identifiable in later portraits. The features of the subject are sharply demarcated; her face is enlarged, skewed and made convex as if seen through a peephole. She pushes her way past the picture plane, exceeds the limits of her canvas; she dominates us. And yet, for all her ostensible self-possession, she remains vulnerable, subject as an Ingres odalisque to our examination and judgement, honed by so much practice in a world that compulsively looks and talks. Stichbury and Kirsten both present us with a challenge. Will we appreciate the grace, the peculiar pathos? Or will we see those watery bulging eyes, snigger, sneer and avert our own? FRANCIS MCWHANNELL