Pixels Floating on the Art World's Margins John Sweeney "Remembering Us," an image by the artist John Sweeney for the forthcoming video game The Last of Us, at the juried "Into the Pixel" exhibition at the E3 convention in Los Angeles. LOS ANGELES - The annual E3 convention here is known for the glitzy premiere of video games with huge budgets, and for its boisterous hustle and bustle. But tucked between the two rowdy convention halls is a quieter area resembling a Chelsea art gallery. This is the site of the "Into the Pixel" exhibition, a juried collection of 16 digital artworks printed on canvas and plucked from the kinds of video games being marketed nearby. Those who stumble upon these works can take a few minutes or more to muse upon the artists" intent and inspiration - and perhaps glean some untold secrets, since the images are from games yet to be released. Now in its 10th year, "Into the Pixel" is still somewhat overlooked during the convention, although perhaps less so than in years past. Recent exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum have considered such art in a different light, focusing on each video game as a whole. "The thing is, these people are not computer geeks - they're real artists," said Martin Rae, the president of the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, which jointly produces the show with the Entertainment Software Association. And this is some of the top-tier art on the planet. When "Into the Pixel" began in 2004, industry executives were seeking a way to celebrate E3"s 10th anniversary. It was an opportune time because the industry had begun to turn out personal computers and game consoles with more powerful graphics processors that allowed artists to put forth their wildest dreams. With far richer textures, shadowing and highlighting, they could begin to fashion something more akin to reality in their virtual worlds. For the current competition, more than 200 works were submitted digitally in April. Each work was considered and rated by a jury of seven members, some from the games world and some not. Jon Gibson, the cultural entrepreneur behind the iam8bit production company and a curator of the show, describes "Into the Pixel" as a sort of hall of fame. "These artists usually work quietly and unknown in very secure cubicle environments," he said. It was important to us to give them the respect they deserve. Over the years, the jury has included movie producers and curators from the art world in an effort to raise the profile of the motley works. The juror Patricia Lanza, a former National Geographic photo editor and the director of talent and content at the Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles, said she was drawn to well-executed pieces that spoke to her emotionally. "I would say some of it is real art," she said. It's illustration art at its finest level. Is it real fine art? Some of it could get to that place. Some pieces were extraordinary, really. One work on which the jury immediately agreed was "Back From the Wild" an image from Destiny, a forthcoming game from Activision and Bungie, the creators of the best-selling Halo series. The piece, by the Bungie illustrator Jaime Jones, depicts an armor-clad robot-like character with a splash of blood on his head. It "is meant to appeal to the kind of player who likes Master Chief or The Terminator," said Mr. Jones, who also worked on conceptual art for the "Man of Steel" movie. While he didn't want the painting to reveal too much, he said, he was going for a level of incongruity and wanted people to ask, "Why is this robotic form feeling tired?" Other images do not look quite as fierce or foreboding. Nathan Stapley, who has worked with the veteran game designer Tim Schafer (Psychonauts, Grim Fandango) since 1999, executed a painting for the game Broken Age that was inspired by one of Mr. Schafer's doodle sketches and evokes the dreamy fantasy and youthful isolation of a children's picture book. "Broken Age will be an old-school 2-D adventure game," Mr. Stapley said. The boy you see is living in a matriarchal spaceship, a very regulated environment. The girl is trapped in her village, and she's going to be the sacrifice at tribal ceremony. I wanted to show that they are living parallel lives. After their debut at E3, the works will be presented at other video game shows, like PAX, a three-day event opening on Aug. 30 in Seattle. And there will be an auction next February at the DICE summit, a gathering of video game executives in Las Vegas, with proceeds going to a scholarship fund. Ultimately, said Mr. Rae of the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, he hopes that conventional art galleries will be part of the "Into the Pixel" tour. At the exhibition's festive opening on Tuesday evening, a crowd of over 300 heard Mike Gallagher, the president of the Entertainment Software Association, praise the selected works as "brilliant" and "phenomenal." Ted Price, the president of Insomniac Games, which made the Ratchet & Clank and Resistance series, pronounced the show a "fine art exhibit" as he gazed upon the oversize works. It could, he said, "bring a whole new generation to museums."