ArtHop pick: This ‘gallery’ comes in a 40-foot shipping container. Artist Isa D’Arleans doesn’t want you to get too comfortable.

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Further background:

The artist: D’Arleans was born and raised in Lyon, France, before moving to the U.S. 30 years ago and eventually making her home in Seattle and then California. With a background in design and fashion, she shifted into painting. Her most recent art exhibits include the Amsterdam Whitney Gallery in NYC, the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris and Chapman University. But about eight years ago, she made the decision to stop selling her paintings and moved more into the sphere of artistic activism.

The local connection: D’Arleans moved to Fresno because of romance, and the city has been a base of operations for her. This ArtHop debut will serve as sort of a test audience for the exhibition. Sponsors include The Pi Shop and Blue Dolphin Engineering.

The “gallery”: It’s designed to be immersive — and jarring. D’Arleans will take people into the exhibition two at a time, and you’ll have just two minutes to experience the 21 paintings, video (by collaborator Skylar Thomas) and audio contained within. (“I don’t want people to get too comfortable in there,” she says.) The lighting is moody and the sensory overload is high. After you exit, you’re encouraged to go to the exhibition’s website and dwell more on the works. Or, you can stand in line and go through again.

The Munro Review

Top: The shipping container with ‘No Time to Waste’ inside. Below: Isa D’Arleans will accompany visitors to the exhibition.

The impact: The paintings are ethereal, colorful, meditative and often piercing. The most provocative quality is the cacophonous nature of the experience, both visually and aurally. If there’s one word I’d use to describe the exhibition, it’d be throbbing. Throwing all these important issues together — and then limiting my time to look — made my heart beat faster. I could sense the urgency. And that, I suspect, is exactly what D’Arleans wanted me to feel.

The generational push: D’Arleans is in her 50s, and she’s intent on collaborating with younger artists (such as Thomas and Carlotta Harlan) to expand her message. “I wanted young people involved,” she says. After all, those younger generations are going to have to deal with a messy world that us older folks will leave behind.

More musings: Beyond the subject matter, I’m also intrigued with the format of the show. In our defiantly digital age in which images from around the world are available instantly online, “No Time to Waste” is actually pretty old-fashioned in that it’s designed to physically travel from one city to another. (D’Arleans hopes to put together a tour that includes college campuses, small towns, big cities — anywhere people are interested.) In that regard, the format is a throwback to 19th century America in which famous paintings often went on “tour” — not to museums, necessarily, but as standalone attractions in which people paid to view a work by itself.

The takeaway: Surprising, vivid, anxious, whimsical — the exhibition is all these things, but it’s also inspiring. I love the passion behind the art. It’s a must-see on your ArtHop itinerary.

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