eBoy is a pixel art collective founded in Los Angeles and Berlin in 1997 by Kai Vermehr, Steffen Sauerteig and Svend Smital, sometimes called “The Godfathers of Pixel”. Working directly on and for the screen, the group builds its images from a modular system of digital pixel objects, producing isometric cityscapes and portraits. Their work spans gallery exhibitions, commercial commissions and NFT series released across several platforms.
eBoy's central idea was to have fun with newly available digital tools, and their decision to work directly on the screen led them to pixel art. A modular, object-based system evolved from this working method, letting complex isometric imagery be assembled from a shared vocabulary of pixel components. In 2023 the group showed the isometric work Whit3-Blackh0l3-Bi0psy and the piece TiliX in “The Pixel Generation”, a Unit London exhibition surveying the history of pixel aesthetics. eBoy has said, “pixels are the atoms of our universe”, describing themselves first and foremost as “builders”. Their commercial commissions have included work for clients such as Adidas, Google and The New York Times, and the group has appeared at design festivals including OFFF. Despite this commercial success, they have tended to remain outside a traditional art-world frame.
