In an age of computers, the Internet and iPods, student artists are finding themselves torn between two opposite approaches to visual art - the traditional approach of "hands-on" art, and the development of computer-generated art.
People are becoming isolated by computers, Facebook.com and e-mail, said Beverly McIver, a drawing and painting professor.
"We've been outside of ourselves for a long time," McIver added. "People are starving for a human connection. There is a return to what's within, and it's definitely a wave in the art world right now."
McIver said she sees more and more students experimenting with psychological meaning in art.
Others consider the opposite, technology, as the trend in today's student art.
The advantages of technology are evident everywhere, including art, said Bernard Young, an art education professor.
"The thing that impresses me is that undergraduate art seems to be exploding with technology - digital art and computers," he said.
In a current exhibit by McIver's students, the self-portraits on display are introspective and saturated with emotion. The exhibit, titled "New Paintings," runs until Oct. 7 at the Harry Wood Gallery on campus.
Anna Ochoa, a painting senior, has two self-portraits on display. For her, paint and color provide a therapeutic release of emotion.
In Ochoa's "la chacha" piece, for example, a pale green background likens to hospital sterility and sickness, while the contrasting red of a scarf and the figure's clothing capture intense anger.
Feelings of resentment and frustration are portrayed just through these colors alone, said Ochoa.
"I get out emotions through art," she said. "It has a meditative quality."
Exploring and expressing personal feelings is not unique just to painting.
Students are discovering that computer-created or technological art doesn't necessarily undercut the introspective properties of art.
Stejpan Rajko, a graduate research assistant in the Arts, Media and Engineering Program, said he thinks digital art can foster self-expression.
"I'm not saying one method is better than the other, but digital art makes it possible for people who don't have proper artistic training to express themselves," he said.
Art education senior Scott Black turns to both digital art and traditional photography as a means of self-expression.
In an exhibit on display this week, he and his classmates demonstrate how alternative means of photography can be introspective.
The exhibit runs through Oct. 7 at the Step Gallery.
Black's untitled work features four photos of condoms set against a contrasting black background.
For Black, the photos take on an intense personal meaning as the condoms represent cells splitting - HIV cells in particular.
Black said that often the artistic processes play into the meaning of his work. Experimenting with traditional as well as digital techniques can, in itself, be part of the self-discovery.
Reach the reporter at ann.censky@asu.edu.
