Working independently, Bay Area artists Sarah Hirneisen and Kadie Salfi have produced distinct but thematically interwoven installations for the Gallery space, each a form-based meditation on the cyclonic forces of tradition, religion, and violence that hae historically forged - and continue to shape – reality in the contemporary Middle East.

Conceptually compelling and meticulously executed, Hirneisen's and Salfi's objects captivate and disorient. A Levantine reliquary houses over 2,000 oil-filled glass vials.  A life-sized dromedary camel silk-screened in crude oil on a plaster mosaic stands over a caravan of 100 miniature, lamp-lit camels hand-cast in bronze. Sharp green blades of living grass sprout from a suspended lattice of spent machine gun shell casings.  Soil samples gathered by U.S. Military personnel in Iraq are sealed within etched glass pouches. Islamic devotional prayer rugs of colored glass, intricately patterned - lie shattered.

The work taps into and animates our collective memory, our collective understanding, perhaps our collective complicity over the realities of this region known as the "Cradle of Civilization."

Hirneisen holds a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. She has exhibited widely in the Bay Area, at Southern Exposure, Lobot Gallery, and ProArts.

Salfi holds a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has had solo exhibitions at Live Worms and Fabuloid in San Francisco, and group shows at Southern Exposure, Magnolia Gallery, and A.I.R. Gallery in New York.