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Masks and Self-Portraits·

"Mask and Self-Portrait," currently held at the Apparatus gallery, 299 S. Park Ave., is an exhibition that highlights the diversity of Tucson's artistic personalities, presenting 29 artists and their various approaches.

Apparatus is also a showcase of functional sculpture. Eriks Rudans combines the theme of masks with his wooden sculpted table and portrait pair.

Rudans' "Dead Soldier" series accentuates the facial architecture of his mask-like portraits through the sharp edges of found-wood. The rugged appearance of the material and the toned down colors imply a solemnity toward his subject which is humorously juxtaposed against their angular nameless faces.

Although "Dead Soldier #24" is a literal soldier, the work functions as a metaphor for the mundane nature of the body after death and its return to the earth.

Susan Cullen's elegant mixed media sculptures combine cast glass with hair, feathers and steel. Cullen embraces art as an emotional outlet.

"Art is a reflection of time, experience and emotion," she said. "If I can evoke an emotion in a viewer, or connect with them on an emotional level, I consider myself a successful artist."

In "Umbilical" a glass head supported by a steel pole looks toward the sky. Horse-hair sprouts from the neck of the head and an umbilical cord winds down the pole to a series of nails rapped in gauze.

Cullen said her work comes in response to very personal situations, in this case the loss of a child.

"It's easier to work coming from a personal perspective," Cullen said. "To me the nails represent the seeds of life. The piece is about the fragility of life."

She says her use of horse hair and feathers comes from Native American war shirts.

Her sculptural self-portrait, "Dakini," presents a glass bust looking up at the sky with a feather attached to the chest.

"Dakini is the sky goddess," Cullen said. "In life we're all drawn to certain aspects of nature, and I've always been drawn to the sky."

In "Mask Walker" a similar figure looks up at the sky walking two masks as if they were dogs. Cullen said she wanted the work to speak to the various masks people carry in their lives.

"Everyone has these masks they put on in certain circumstances," she said. "I don't see this as a negative thing necessarily. It is also really empowering."

Gweneth Scally brings to the exhibit her visual clarity, charm and wit with her painting "Reception." The figure is wearing a suit with no shoes or shirt and has a television in place of his head. An unplugged cord comes from the crotch of his body.

The work contrasts sexual desire with the media and ways in that desires are informed. That the figure is not "plugged in" suggests a feeling of detachment.

Other artists include Gavin Troy, whose "Self-Portrait" presents a mechanical figure in a futurist cathedral-like space, and Mark Murray, whose sculptures are comprised of dismembered toys.

The exhibition continues through April 29. There will be an opening reception March 25 from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.