When Erin Pollock and Steph Kese started poking, carving, burning and adorning 367 pounds of wax in February, they sought mastery over a new medium and a chance to film the process as an art show.

“376 lbs of wax” at the MTS Gallery in Mountain View until August 15 accomplishes much more by delving into the sublime marvel of creation and decay while divulging the secrets of art making.

This beautifully macabre and transparent exhibit consists of three distinct but interrelated bodies of work separated by makeshift walls built from cardboard, wood scraps and other material. Masks made of wax form the heart of the show. Since winter, Pollock and Kese collected casts made of dental alginate from ninety local people who shuffled into their studio in Spenard.

The two artists used these casts to shape and carve life-like masks of beeswax and paraffin embellished with hair, earrings, make-up, hats and other props like headphones and cigarettes.

Judging from the dozen or so intact masks displayed in the show, the artists labored over details like the inside of mouths, the shape and color of eyes and the texture of skin. As the coup de grace, they melted many of these masks on a piece of steel heated by direct flame, filming the process from about three feet away.

The edited film reveals a wondrous display of color, dissolution and reconstitution, but more on that later. Let me first lay out the rest of the show.

The entry area of the gallery includes debris from the mask-making process—cardboard cut-outs used during casting and splattered with paint—along with a series of photos capturing odd, even creepy, visual narratives using masks as central characters. In short, the artists and a few of their friends set up shots of people holding the masks up to their faces in almost natural ways. The effect proves alluring and arresting, playful and disturbing.

Bruce Farnsworth, the gallery’s director, calls the images a “series of scary set-ups in David Lynch-like photo shoots.”

In other words, the masks look just un-lifelike enough to make viewers pause and look again.

One photo shows a pilot in a small aircraft, the wax mask serious and static. Another depicts what looks like lazy lovers in scrubby terrain, one with a mask, and still another shows a woman walking away from an “adult only” sign. (If you look closely, you’ll recognize the Spenard hotel near where the shot took place.)

These photos document masks later melted away in the context of human life.

Some masks remain intact, however, and hang along a wall leading into the back gallery. These sculpted visages give viewers an idea of the artists’ attention to detail and thoroughness.

No doubt, many viewers will recognize the faces on the wall and wonder which of the destroyed masks represented people they know.

Beyond this wall, a series of photos in a clear but wax-like sheen show masks in moments of melting, a few engulfed in flames and all caught in various states of emotion—bliss, regret, serenity, surprise, anguish.

Toward the back of this gallery space, viewers end up at topography of wax with little sign posts marking the remains of various masks—“Oscar,” “Britne,” and so on—like little memorials.

Nearby, a video of the mask-making process in stop animation appears on a TV set under the stairs.

The more absorbing feature film screens in a darkened room built in the middle of the gallery. By painting and adding wax both inside and out, front and back, the artists made sure that the melting process would unfold in visually exotic ways.

In the film, colors weep away from the masks in psychedelic splendor as facial features dissolve into mere traces.

Shown in reverse, colors bleed back into form as these reformed heads tilt back into position, animated, even reborn.

Nothing about “367 lbs of wax” relies on magic or illusion—and the artists make no secret of their labor and craft —but the show comes across as both magical and illusory, much like the presence of life itself, whether in flesh or wax or imagination.

“367 lbs of wax” through August 15, at the MTS Gallery