For artist Marcela Prikryl, the human face is a fascinating text filled with information about the owner's character and experiences.

In Face-to-Face, showing at the Dundas Valley School of Art until Oct. 11, Ms. Prikryl gives viewers psychological peeks into the souls of others through the artistry of her portraiture.

The exhibition is a wide-ranging selection of Ms. Prikryl's oil paintings, drawings and prints of models, friends and relatives that vividly reveals her superb skill and sensitivity as a portrait artist.

"The drawing and painting of portraits is a process of reading the text of a living face and translating it into a static medium," said. Ms. Prikryl, an Ancaster resident.

"If I am lucky, the portrait shows both a good likeness of the person, but also something more, a glimpse of understanding, an insight into the sitter's character."

Ms. Prikryl's Mary Daydreaming oil on canvas reveals a woman of middle years. Devoid of makeup, the sitter appears tired and preoccupied with shadow, smudged deep-set eyes and hair hastily tied back. In Young and Regal, a monumental portrait drawing in charcoal and chalk pastel, the viewer sees a very pretty and healthy young woman confidently arrayed in the splendour of her youth. She exudes the innocence and naive confidence -- and perhaps arrogance -- that only the young possess.

Face-to-Face also includes some of Ms. Prikryl's courtroom drawings. A court artist for the Hamilton Spectator, Ms. Prikryl has covered a number of the area's high profile crimes.

Ms. Prikryl works in a variety of media, including pen and ink, oil, acrylics, chalk pastel and printmakng. She has shown her work in Canada and Europe, and has won numerous awards at juried shows. She has had a number of private portrait commissions and her work is in collections throughout Europe and North America. Locally, she teaches printmaking workshops at the Dundas Valley School of Art.

For more information about Face-to-Face or printmaking workshops, call the Dundas Valley School of Art at 905-628-6357.