Back in the late 1970s when video games were still a novelty, visual art was prominent in packaging and marketing but had yet to transfer to the screen. Fast forward a decade or so. Video game designers, some of whom are traditional painters and artists, are now able to experiment and express themselves in ways they may have imagined but didn’t think were possible.

It is this progression, and beyond, that an ambitious exhibit at The College of New Jersey Art Gallery is exploring through December 13. “A Palette of Pixels: The Evolving Art of Video Games” looks at the last three decades of the medium with concept art, sketches, and sculptures from video games, as well as interactive game stations. Curator Chris Ault, associate professor of interactive multimedia and the former chair of the department at TCNJ, said the question of whether video games are art has been a hot topic in recent years.

“There have been exhibitions at the Smithsonian, the Museum of Modern Art, and other places about this,” he said. “What we’re doing is looking at how all of this has evolved.”

The show starts with arcade games and Atari consoles. “If you look at the graphics and the art put together for marketing and packaging, it was undeniably art and over the top,” Mr. Ault said. “It was detailed and conjured up fantastic worlds. But technology at the time didn’t allow you to get that on the screen. We actually start our exhibition way back then, at this time of disparity where people were imagining with box art what they weren’t able to do on screen. It was a dilemma.”

In the earliest days of video games, it was impossible to get anything realistic on the screen, so it was all abstract. “You had to read into it,” Mr. Ault said. “For a good 20 years, there was a creative challenge and a kind of technical arms race to create the hardware that would finally enable game designers to put something realistic on the screen. In the late 1900s and early 2000s, it was finally up to the job. Often it was very realistic, because they wanted to show that off.”

There is a whole generation of artists who may have grown up studying traditional art forms and have also spent time playing video games. The expense of technical tools may have prevented them from merging the two skills, but that has changed. “There are a lot of traditional artists with this new avenue available to them,” Mr. Ault said. “And there is also the opposite — people who have grown up very technologically inclined, realizing that coding is not just technical and manipulating numbers. It is another means for creative self-expression. So they’re embracing their artistic side.”

As an example of the former, Mr. Ault cites artist Patrick Smith, who recently won an Apple Design Award. “He’s a painter who went to art school. For the last 10 or 15 years, he has made a name for himself and is a real star among programmers. He taught himself how to program because it was an interesting mode of expression. So he’s a traditional artist who has made his reputation as an inventive coder.”

Mr. Ault and Emily Croll, who directs the gallery, collaborated on an exhibition about data art a few years ago. The popularity of the show led them to consider the current topic. “Video games are a big interest on the part of our students,” Mr. Ault said. “Students can major in interactive media. Games are a big part of what we do, but not the only thing. The curriculum evolves with the technology. It’s a very interdisciplinary program and games have been a great way to bring those things together. We’ve been offering this [major] for about 11 years, and enrollment has gone up quite steadily.”

In conjunction with the exhibition, TCNJ’s music department will present a concert, “Press Play,” on Friday, October 30 at 8 p.m. in the Kendall Main Stage Theater. On the program is music from video games performed by The College of New Jersey Wind Ensemble and guests, the TCNJ Chorale, and guest conductor Gerard K. Marino, composer for the God of War series. Mr. Marino will present a free lecture that same day, at 12:30 p.m., in the Mayor Concert Hall of the music building.

The campus is at 2000 Pennington Road in Ewing Township. Visit www.tcnj.edu for more information.