As a space for showing art, the small storefront that houses the Experience Gallery has some drawbacks. It’s small, and that limits the size of exhibitions. The ceilings are low, and that cuts down the kind of art that will fit in the room. There are too many windows for curators to control the lighting, and that leaves too little wall space to hang paintings and other works. But the gallery has something unique: It is located right in the middle of the Denver Performing Arts Complex downtown, in a compact commercial nook, tucked under the stairs that connect the complex’s various venues to its parking lots. Katie Caron’s “Cross Sections” occupies the back corner wall of the CU Experience Gallery. (Daniel Tseng, Special to The Denver Post) The place is easy to miss, but it does benefit from the kind of foot traffic that other galleries would kill for. On a busy evening, thousands of culture lovers — fans of plays, symphonies, ballets and operas — pass right by its door, and it is easy for them to wander in as a way of adding a few minutes of visual arts to their performing arts outings. The gallery knows its place, and has set it hours according: It is only open from 4 to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and from noon to 7 p.m. on weekends. (Note: Holiday hours may vary.) The place is operated through a partnership between the University of Colorado Denver and the complex’s owner, Denver Arts & Venues, two reputable institutions that keep the quality high. The Experience Gallery shows a wide variety of fare, though it specializes in interactive work and the intersection between technology and art. The current exhibit, a three-person effort titled “Incubator,” is right on theme, and it has a bit of a theatrical aura — with big, showy, prop-like objects — that should please the hyper-local audience that will see it. The show’s conceit is that the sounds and words that we hear — even before birth and then as we morph into mature organisms — impact who we are as individuals. The artists find their own ways to explore the theme of human consciousness and how it develops.  Katie Caron goes big, creating “Neuron Forest,” an installation that mimics neurological patterns in our brains, but also looks like a gathering of branches that might have fallen from trees. The piece, stretching floor-to-ceiling, is made of spindly sections of fiberglass. Caron, a professor at Arapahoe Community College, projects a video on the work, which keeps its color changing and reflects how our complex internal networks — carrying communications that add up to our personal consciousness — are in constant motion. More metaphorical is Jaimé Belkind-Gerson’s pedestal-mounted sculpture “Birth of a Heart,” made mostly of clay and resin. The abstract piece depicts a blood-red heart emerging from a bone-like, or skin-like, shell. Katie Caron’s “Neuron Forest,” inspired by the shape of the nervous system, changes color over time. (Daniel Tseng, Special to The Denver Post) The heart, the artist explains in his statement, is a core biological tool for our bodies, but also serves as a symbol of our capacity to love and share compassion for others. By capturing the organ in development, and in a way that is visible outside of the body, Belkind-Gerson — who is also a pediatric gastroenterologist — gets at “the idea of creation as both an internal and external experience.” The show has one deeply immersive moment in the form of artist Travis Vermilye’s “The Womb Room.” For this multimedia installation, visitors enter a curving environment, walled off from the rest of the gallery by curtains that glow in a warm orange. Once inside the space, they hear muffled sounds and feel vibrations — emanating from a mysterious mix of noises that seems to combine wind, the patterns of biological systems, muffled voices and more. The experience is involving, if you linger and give it a moment to settle in over your senses, and it does evoke the feeling of being inside a host body. In his statement, Vermilye, who teaches at CU, asks us to consider “How might the environment our mothers inhabit regularly while we’re in the womb affect our development from fetus to adult?” The exhibit is a collaboration between CU and a local organization called IL, which according to signage aims to provide opportunities for the public to better understand the human growth experience and its connections to technology and art. The effort does succeed in that way, at least through an artful lens. These artists show how science has mapped out our physiological systems, and answered many questions about how cells and DNA connect into larger organisms that add up to the present version of humans that now inhabit the Earth. But the work also acknowledges the things we do not know, like how our souls come to be, and how our personalities emerge and evolve. It respects the idea that little things — perhaps something overheard, or misunderstood, or even a silent utterance of self-doubt in our heads — can have as much impact on how we function as the blood running through our veins. The exhibit “Incubator” continues through Feb. 2 at the CU Experience Gallery. (Daniel Tseng, Special to The Denver Post) The Experience Gallery is set up as something of a sideshow. It’s not so much a destination as it is an added attraction to the live events that take place on the art center’s concrete and glass grounds. But CU programs the show like it is a main event, at least intellectually. It’s a project space for sure, a place for experimentation, and its free admission is in line with the varying levels of exhibits the site offers. But it is a space worth keeping an eye on to visit, even if you do not have tickets to a nearby show. IF YOU GO “Incubator” continues through Feb. 2 at the CU Experience Gallery, located inside the Denver Performing Arts Complex. It’s free. Check the website for special hours over the holidays. Info: cudenverexpgallery.org.