Without further ado, meet the icon, Jason Ebeyer
“I FEEL LIKE EXPLORING 'GENDER, EXPRESSION, AND SEXUALITY' THROUGH MY WORK MADE ME FEEL MORE CONFIDENT AS AN ‘OUT’ PERSON AND FEELING MORE COMFORTABLE AND SAFER WITHIN MYSELF WAS A TURNING PIÒINT IN MY WORK”
MEET THE ICON, JASON EBEYER
Sporting a Cradle of Filth t-shirt and an unassuming mullet, one might not expect Jason Ebeyer to create fantastical, alien-like dreamscapes for a devoted crowd of digital super fans. What we would come to learn in conversation with the world-renowned 3D artist is that each one of his characters are a personification of his moods and experiences. The glossy aesthetic that he’s become famous for highlights an effort to create virtual utopias when real life seems awry.
With collaborations from the likes of Troye Sivan to Bebe Rexha, the Australian native has cyber-rocketed to success, lacing glamour and gore into a diverse range of hyper-erotic figures. The dichotomies in his work show a range of emotion and ecstasy that has become a signature style: one moment you're in a Garden of Eden and the next you’re smothered by tentacles in a virtual purgatory.
Disrupting gender norms and celebrating sexuality, Jason uniquely thrives off the taboos that few dared to address in his childhood. From censorship to self-expression, he provokes his viewers to question human desire from a digital gaze. So, how did a young artist from Australian suburbia become the reference point for personifying our wildest fantasies online?
Without further ado, meet the icon, Jason Ebeyer.
THE ACCOMPANYING WORKS WERE CREATED IN COLLABORATION WITH THE ARTIST HIMSELF, PLACING A FETISHIZED ADAM & EVE INTO THE TRASHYMUSE WORLD - A SMART CITY IN CYBERSPACE.
3D Artwork & Video: @jasonebeyer, co-creative directed by @web3allstars
Interview in cooperation w/ @limboandhatch x @web3allstars
IF YOU COULD MEET ONE OF YOUR AVATARS IN PERSON FOR THE DAY WHICH ONE WOULD YOU BRING TO LIFE AND WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
I don't think a lot of people realise this, but a lot of my characters are kind of the same character and I just cosmetically alter them depending on the mood I'm going for. As weird as it sounds, even my female characters are a representation of my feminine side. So, I couldn't really pick the feminine or the masculine side to hang out with and I don't know what we would do because they're absolutely giant and disgustingly jacked. I feel like even a handshake would probably break my hand.
THAT'S REALLY INTERESTING, SO IT'S ALMOST LIKE YOUR DIFFERENT ENERGIES THAT ARE PERSONIFIED INTO THE FIGURES?
Literally, yeah. It's only really recently that I started bringing different characters in and broadening my collection to include more races and things like that. Beforehand, I always had the mentality that because this is my personal work I needed to explore my personal views and experiences. But, a lot of people were raising the fact that there wasn't a lot of representation in my characters. And at first, I was like, oh, no, it's all good because this is my personal stuff; it's representing me. But then I reached out to these people and we had a discussion and they explained to me that, ‘yeah, you're whatever you are but you need to understand that all of your experiences and views developed from being part of such a multicultural community, especially the LGBT community, it's such a multicultural group’.
They really opened my eyes to show me that it's very important, especially as someone who has a bit of a platform, to add more layers to my work and include more people. And I mean, since doing that, I honestly feel much better about what I'm producing. I’m having people message me in response to my work saying things like ‘they can see themselves’ and hearing things like that, I mean, that’s what I do this for.
DO YOU RECALL A DEFINING PROJECT IN YOUR CAREER WHERE YOU FELT YOU SOLIDIFIED YOUR PRACTICE AND MESSAGE YOU CONTINUE TO SHARE?
My first major project was when I did the music video with Troye Sivan. He's Australian, he's gay and I listened to his music through uni, so, to work on that and the amount of freedom that he gave me was a real confidence boost in my work. Obviously, I couldn't have chosen for that to be my first major project but I think the way it worked out and the fact that it was for a gay performer is a big deal in my story.
HOW DID YOUR PROJECT WITH TROYE SIVAN COME ABOUT?
I got an email from someone that said they were his manager and I thought it was spam, so I deleted it. And then I got another email from them being like, ‘no, this is legit, he wants to talk to you’. At the time, I was working in a call centre, so I had to go down to the car park on my lunch break and have a call with Troye Sivan on the
THERE IS BOTH BEAUTY AND UGLINESS IN YOUR WORLDS, HOW DO YOU NAVIGATE THE TENSION BETWEEN THE DYSTOPIAS AND UTOPIAS YOU CREATE?
It all comes back to how I'm feeling. Oddly enough, the happier I am in the real world the darker my stuff is digitally and then the opposite. So, if I'm feeling a bit depressed, I'll make something bright and colourful. It's really weird, but in my head, it makes perfect sense. It's almost like if I'm feeling happy, I need to have something a bit sad to balance me out because I'm either really excited or really down, you know what I mean?
DURING LOCKDOWN, DIGITAL AESTHETICS AND AVATARS LIKE YOURS HAVE BECOME MORE COMMERCIALISED. WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE FUTURE OF DIGITAL AVATARS AND VIRTUAL INFLUENCE?
In terms of where companies are heading, I don't see them going back to solely physical campaigns. At the start of lockdown, I did a project with HUDA Beauty and upfront they were like, ‘we had a campaign planned, but now we're going fully digital’, and that continued to happen throughout the year. I just kept picking up projects that were dropping their physical campaigns. It feels like things are only going to get further and further into the digital realm.
There's also a big shift in people buying digital artwork with cryptocurrency. It's becoming such a big movement, especially for a lot of artists. What I find exciting about that is the possibilities of what young artists will be able to produce moving forward with such a big digital cash boost. I remember back to when I first started and one of the biggest roadblocks was not my ideas but lack of equipment and lack of time. All of these younger designers, now earning such a good income from their art, are going to be able to put more time and money into it and create some really amazing stuff.
WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO AN EMERGING ARTIST ASPIRING TO WORK IN THIS FIELD?
It's really important to push yourself to find your own style. There's a big difference between inspiration and copying. I'll speak from experience, when I first started I copied lots of artists trying to figure out the software and different techniques they used. I think it's a tricky thing to discover your own aesthetic and specific niche but I would 100% encourage young artists to do so.
WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE DIGITAL PLATFORM TO SHARE AND PROMOTE YOUR ART?
I hope I don't get unverified for saying this but I don't like Instagram anymore. I love the community that I have there but like 5% of that community sees my stuff. I think for me, the start of the decline was when notification tabs became a shopping button. It's like, oh, so we know what you want us to do then, cool. I also use TikTok but it’s a bit hard because a lot of the stuff I put up gets flagged straight away as adult content and sometimes I'm like, ‘yeah, I understand that’ but other times I'm like, ‘it's literally a thigh?!’
I think Twitter is such a great platform though. I love that there is no censorship on nudity or sex work. I like it as well because you feel like you can put more personality into it. With Twitter, you're reading someone's thoughts. Even if they backspaced and revised it 15 times, it's still something they thought and you can engage with them and have a conversation over it, which you can't do as easily under someone's selfie.
IF YOU HAD NO LIMITS, WHAT WOULD YOUR DREAM SOLO-EXHIBITION INCLUDE? IRL, URL, A MIX OF BOTH?
A lot of people think that I would want to do something with virtual or augmented reality, but I get hectic motion sickness so I can just imagine being in a VR headset for even ten minutes, I'd want to throw up everywhere.
I would love to have an entire gallery decked out with a physical install made of organic structural pieces to look like the worlds that I create and then fill it with sculptures of my characters. Something with a beautiful soundscape and an entire vibe to immerse you in the world. For me, being able to physically touch something and feel its presence is what I would want to present. I would love to have this space, which literally feels like you're walking into paradise but then also within that have this grotesque, gory, kind of like sex dungeon vibe, you know what I mean?
DO YOU FEEL COMPLETELY FREE WHEN YOU’RE CREATING OR DO YOU EVER FEEL THAT A PIECE OF WORK BECOMES “TOO MUCH” FOR YOUR AUDIENCE?
I’ve definitely had ideas and concepts that I thought might be too risky to produce, even if there is no ill intent at all. As much as I love to provoke, I never want anyone to feel like I'm singling them out or that they've been made to feel less than who they are. I guess it's more me censoring myself and holding back on certain things as opposed to a platform doing so.
CENSORSHIP COMES UP FREQUENTLY WHEN NAVIGATING ONLINE CURATION. DO YOU HAVE ANY PREDICTIONS ABOUT HOW CENSORSHIP WILL EVOLVE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD?
It's a tricky topic because I can understand censorship to a certain degree, especially with social media and with children being online. My nephews are like eight and nine, and they've got iPads, iPhones, iPods, everything. As a kid, I never lived in that age where the internet was so readily available. So I feel like it's going to get more censored as we move forward. Obviously, I would love it to go the opposite way but I think it's a ceiling and it's only going to be more regulated. Sorry to sound glum.
A LOT OF YOUR WORK DISPLAYS BDSM REFERENCES AND EVEN POP CULTURE VILLAINS IN A SEXUAL WAY. CAN YOU EXPLAIN WHY THESE FANTASIES, FETISHES AND CHARACTERS ARE PARTICULARLY INTERESTING TO YOU?
I'm so desensitized to nudity and seeing sex every day now, not even just from my own work, but with my friends or people I follow who are sex workers. I'll be scrolling through Twitter and I'm like, ‘oh, yeah, cool, there’s so and so’s butthole’.
The reason I lean towards it more in my work is that growing up sex was a very taboo topic in my household; different gender identities, being gay, being trans were never really spoken about. It wasn’t until I got older and left home that I realised I am gay and experienced it that way. I think for me it was an important part of my work to explore that part of myself, a part that I missed growing up.
WE’RE SEEING THE SEX INDUSTRY PIVOT TO TECHNOLOGY; WITH ONLY FANS AVATARS AND IMMERSIVE EROTIC EXPERIENCES. HOW DO YOU THINK THE STIGMA AGAINST SEX WORKERS AND THE SEX INDUSTRY WILL CHANGE?
I think the more that 3D software advances and the more accessible it becomes, people are going to start creating more of their fantasies on platforms like Only Fans. I don’t think there’s any harm in it, it’s just a way of expressing yourself. Only Fans, in general, is a good thing for that whole industry. From the people I know who are on it, they feel safe, they’re showing what they want to show and don’t feel pressured to do anything. They’re 100% in control and they’re making bank.
MONEY PLUS AGENCY, THAT'S WHAT WE LOVE TO SEE.
Exactly
WHAT ROLE CAN DIGITAL ART PLAY IN NORMALISING FLUIDITY OF GENDER, EXPRESSION AND SEXUALITY? AND HAS YOUR WORK HELPED YOU ON YOUR OWN PERSONAL JOURNEY WITH THESE THEMES?
When I first started working in 3D I was fairly fresh to being out of the closet so a lot of the characters I made were still very female-focused. It took me a bit of time to feel comfortable enough in myself to explore the masculine characters and the more gay-erotic side of it. I mean Australia’s fairly safe but I grew up in a country town where it wouldn’t have been safe, so it was always in the back of my mind like, ‘am I going to get my head kicked in for this?’. I feel like exploring that through my work made me feel more confident as an ‘out’ person and feeling more comfortable and safer within myself was a turning point in my work.
