If you believe the eyes are the windows of the soul, the current exhibit at Mathias Fine Art, “Making Headlines,” will intrigue and delight. Presented through canvas, sculpture, and photographs and collage, the human head is explored in imaginative depth, detail and scale.

The 12 artists represented in the exhibit present their subjects through many mediums: pen and ink, charcoal, mixed media, graphic prints, photography; bronze, steel, and metals, cast plaster, gouache and wood, wasp paper, handmade paper.

The works express joy, reflection, curiosity, despair, fright, violence, strength and sorrow. Some of it is captured within the work and some is projected by us to the exhibit subjects.

As gallery owner and curator Cordula Mathias noted, “With our heads, we as human beings can express ourselves, often unwittingly.”

Some heads are very present, fully realized, fleshed out, so to speak. Others, such as M. Holland Bartsch’s “The Thinker,” are not. This piece really grabbed my attention (as did her two other pieces in the show). I saw the subject as an elderly man, the crease above the eye you can see indicating his brow is furrowed. He is captured in a moment of deep thought.

The placement of his hand told me he could be in a “what will I do now” situation. Why? Because that is what I do. I could have stood looking at this one piece for a very long time. The paper also fascinated me.

Mathias said Bartsch had made it herself specifically for this pen and ink work. This, I think days after seeing the exhibit, is an artist I would like to meet.

Brenda Bettinson's mixed media pieces from her “Trojan War Series,” including “Sons of Priam” in 2009. Priam, the King of Troy, had many sons of all whom died in battle. Bettinson's work “Sons of Priam” appears to be three different faces, but could in fact be one son at different phases of his life, be representative of all Priam's sons, which would, in fact, be Priam.

The eyes, in any vision a viewer might have reflect sorrow, bewilderment and a warrior's spirit simultaneously. The splashes of red on the edge of the canvas, Mathias said, were representative of the bloodshed and the fire that destroyed Troy.

An intriguing metal collage, “Regatta: Between the Sails,” contains heads peering out from behind their metal shields/faces. Their faces seem to exhibit childlike curiosity so much so that you expect them to quickly disappear. This piece (and three others) are by sculptor and artist John Lorence. He is also the former director of the Maine Art Gallery in Wiscasset.

Lorence also created one of the two fascinating sculptures in this exhibit, for me. His cast bronze head called, “Arrowsic Chief,” created in 1996, is an experiment in plane; instead of giving his chief a round head, he made an angled, three-sided one. The detail of the teeth, the hole in the ear, the flared nostrils, the feather headdress, incredible, however, the smiley faces I saw in the eyes was a bit disconcerting. More of Lorence's sculpture is on exhibit at the Tidewater Gallery in Waldoboro.

A captivating sculpture of welded scrap metal entitled, “Centurion,” by Robert J. Cariola is a weighty piece — physically and imaginatively. Upon close inspection of the head, the disfigurement of the warrior is evident; from his dislocated jaw line to the spike extending out from his left eye. The wages of war and its horrors immortalized in metal.

Yes, they are talking heads, speaking to the viewer not only through their eyes, but through their presentation. What will they say to you? “Making Headlines” runs through September 22.

Mathias Fine Art is located at Mathias Drive, off West Side Road, on Barters Island, approximately 6.5 miles from Boothbay center.

For more information, visit www.mathiasfineart.com.