In Peter Stichbury’s painting Leer, four figures hold hands in a complex circular arrangement. The intense light focuses our attention on where the hands are grasped or merely laid across one another. Handshakes have long signified trust and equality, as well as a deal being made, a friend being greeted or an enemy being intimidated. A hand can be held lovingly or held in restraint, shaken in commiseration or in congratulation. The gazes of each of the figures add a further level of complexity. The figure on the front right is Samantha Mitchell, a former partner of Stichbury and a practising contemporary artist. Unlike the rest of them whose gazes are outward, she stares intensely at the figure in the dazzling white shirt. He is Florian Habicht the filmmaker, who most recently was the inaugural recipient of the Harriet Friedlander Scholarship. Behind them in the shadows is Nicholas Butler who starred in Habicht’s digital feature-length film noir Woodenhead in 2003. While the fourth figure is unidentified, she is no doubt, like the other three, an art school companion of Stichbury’s. Our eye is taken in a continuous searching pattern, around the sequence of handshakes, which for Stichbury convey an idea of psychological and/or spiritual interconnectedness.Emma Fox