The tense devices of Valamanesh hover in restrained formality, hesitating on the brink of meaning. Angels might descend. Two white cones protrude from the wall, a hint of shy unicorns thrusting tentative horns into our consciousness, but the slant of a white funnel into the wall face opposite shifts perception: suddenly a conduit snakes behind illusory sunlight. A speaking tube to an mysterious engine room directed by calculations charted from this oblique data?

Opposite, a teardrop of waxy pink concavities briefly summons the multiple breasts of Ephesian Artemis. Closer, this fecundity seems inapt; anonymous body parts, slightly worn † heels? † evading identification. Resting elbow wrinkles. But femininity parallels the tall wax rod/inverted cone top lolling against a hatch to nowhere. A staff for the abject initiate.

These riddles develop after the first eyeful. The literality of glance echoes alphabet slashes of wooden laths V-cutting a graphic geometry across rectangular muted pinks, like a reconstruction of fractured kanji. The implication of the subtle blow to one's bodily sensations of a suddenly subverted inner room yawing off vertical through the deletion/insertion of blackness. Dancing on this fools' deck questions our assumed stability, but the whole gallantry of human frailty is re-established in the humble waxen toes which emerge from the level wall base, quietly asserting temporary equilibrium.

The unerring exactitude of Valamanesh's reticent questioning is evident in all of her cryptic deliberations. Her work combines a refined sensibility with pathos and humility in a restraint that is perhaps almost too extreme.

Lurking mortality also inhabits the deliberately suburban nature of Ostrow's installation: everyday transience is laid out in a decor of temporary acquisition and spiritual sampling. Smooth new furnishing artefacts from a Freedom catalogue model home, only that the style here is more Chigwell. A dining setting; a lounge ensemble of cream couch and glass-topped coffee table, complete with table nest (perhaps not teak but the feeling was teak, rainforest angst consorting with Goya) ready for the teacups of extra guests. A video/TV for each location. Superfluously normal. It feels like going into a room with a centre ceiling light † innocuous, uniform. Meanwhile, the viewer sits staring at the screen wondering where his/her life is going.

A flutter of instaframes souvenir a grab bag of video stills and magazine pics † the Dalai Lama simpering against Chinese red, Maria Callas, Ostrow herself pondering her pink and white auras, a Thai temple... Despite my initial response (due to recently dealing with polished whatnots from the 1940s), it took me a while to empathise with this show because of my cynicism and designer dislike of the furniture. I found it hard to respond to the innocent hopefulness of these pious scenes, wistful in their tawdry frames, as representing any serious possibility. However, this show asks a lot of questions about potential for beauty, spirituality, the meaning of the Life of Brian. Desperation looking on the bright side. Sedately serious, its flatness simply says that this is the way things are, it's probably all that there is, let's get on with it. But perhaps...

A handy sound system aids cocoon culture meditation. Simultaneous videos, white noise for the mind. Life's a motel suite; if muzak of spring strings or melting snow fails to refresh the soul unnerved by intimations of mortality, sooth yourself with optional tarot or hypnosis. Let indeterminate scraps of Asian religion band-aid your stubbed knees in the face of screen slaughter. Only a queasy comfort comes from Ostrow's images in their questioning of wall-to-wall certainty. No broad loom here to blur our skittering uncertainty. Everything goes back to the shop tomorrow.

This show's sly insinuations around the commonplace may appear contrary to the cool vertigo of Valamanesh, but both artists deal very effectively with a disturbance of seeming coherence, disrupting our casual carapace of invulnerability. That old banana skin effect again.