29 Sep 2023/58 min/so cmplxd
MLow X so cmplxd
A never published Google Meet conversation with the painter of ordinary objects, on screens, food, intuition, and how to release work you actually believe in.
MLow sits down with so cmplxd, whose body of work runs under the title An Ordinary Life. The artist explains how his first series grew from the idea of screens, the small glass we live in front of almost as a ritual, and how supermarket ads and coupons pushed him toward portraits of everyday objects and food. He calls his style Digital Realism, tracing it to the realism movement and the Dutch golden age, when painters first turned to common life, and he layers in manga, anime, Warhol, Tezuka, Hopper, and Caravaggio's lighting, sharpened by his day job as a set designer.
The conversation doubles as an origin story. His account began as complex dog, a PFP project of dog characters he never dropped; overwhelmed by wallets, scams, and social media, he renamed himself so cmplxd because the space was simply so complicated. Watching Grant Yun succeed with 2D illustration gave him the confidence to post his own work, and his first SuperRare piece, 1996, a childhood computer scene ringed with snacks and 90s pop culture, sold after months of relentless posting: one tweet a day, constant retweets of his own art, no cold pitches to collectors.
The back half turns practical. He walks MLow through the cake piece with Lowkey Ventures (a free open edition where crumb variants appeared only in the final hours of the mint), the Of Days photography collaboration with Richard Caldwell on Nifty Gateway, and an unminted laundry basket painting stuffed with NFT culture Easter eggs. He admits he does not know how to release it, and MLow talks him through trait gated mints, one of ones, and small editions, then invites him into a 50 artist Foundation drop planned for the end of October. It is a working session between an artist and a curator, caught on tape and never aired.
What this episode teaches
- Blast the work, skip the pitch
so cmplxd built his collector base by posting one tweet a day and constantly retweeting his own art, a habit he copied from active artists like Grant Yun. He never emails collectors cold: they know where to find the work, and he refuses to keep being a salesman.
- You can feel who really wants the work
Through conversation he learned to tell which collectors want a piece for what it is and which will slowly fade away. He builds relationships to meet people, not to close sales, and lets the rest go.
- Borrow confidence from a proven peer
He doubted 2D illustration of ordinary life could work in a feed full of glitch art, Pepes, and Bitcoin memes. Following Grant Yun's slow rise gave him proof that his kind of work could find a market, so he posted his own.
- Simplify to survive complexity
His whole process, simple Photoshop tools, simplified shapes, a basic construction, exists because the space overwhelmed him. The name so cmplxd marks the problem; the simple work is the answer.
- Utility is value back, dilution is more supply
MLow draws the line: dropping collection after collection is dilution of your brand, while airdrops that return value to existing holders are utility. so cmplxd left PFP projects behind for exactly this reason.
- Small editions in a down market
MLow's read of late 2023: editions of 15 pieces or fewer have been the most successful, and editions are easier for collectors to digest than one of ones right now, though he remains a one of one fan himself.
- AI as a sketching tool, not the artwork
so cmplxd uses Midjourney to visualize ideas quickly and feeds his own paintings into it to test styles, while the finished work stays hand built in Photoshop. MLow shares his own chain: camera, Photoshop composites, Stable Diffusion, then Runway ML for video.
- Design the mint as part of the piece
The cake collaboration was a free open edition of cake slices with a hidden mechanic: in the last two hours of the roughly ten hour window, minters got crumbs instead, the cake having run out. The scarcity gag was the concept.
The conversation, topic by topic
An Ordinary Life
so cmplxd describes his current body of work: a first series about screens, the ritual of living in front of the little screen, then a move to portraits of everyday objects and food, sparked by supermarket ads and coupons. He follows intuition alone, collecting visual ideas by walking around town and driving down the street.
The cake piece with Lowkey Ventures
A mini collaboration born from office birthday cakes that always run out. He pitched a free open edition of cake slices so there would always be plenty of cake, and Lowkey Ventures' Brian (whom MLow knows from growing up in the same part of New York) suggested the Easter egg: only crumbs mint in the final two hours. He framed the food work as feeding the algorithm something delicious.
Digital Realism
Asked to classify his style, he lands on Digital Realism: not photorealism, but the tradition of depicting common everyday life that emerged in the Dutch golden age and the 1800s realism movement, when art stopped being only religious or for the elite. He sees himself carrying on the tradition of painting life now.
Influences and the day job
He names Andy Warhol, Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy, Edward Hopper, and Caravaggio's lighting, plus manga and anime absorbed alongside Western art history. His career as a set designer, working daily with lighting and sets, feeds directly into how he stages his images.
Why so cmplxd
His first account was complex dog, a PFP project of dog characters about how life is complicated. He never dropped it (four were minted quietly on objkt on Tezos), and as crypto, wallets, scams, and social media overwhelmed him he renamed the account so cmplxd, a learn everything and report back mission for his web2 friends.
Of Days with Richard Caldwell
Caldwell, always supportive of rising artists, shared photographs for artists to build on for a Nifty Gateway drop. so cmplxd picked a racetrack, feeling everyone in the space was racing to win, and painted a golden trophy on top: an everybody is a winner idea, and his first foothold on an early curated platform.
The wrong artist moment
MLow compliments an animation as so cmplxd's first SuperRare mint and the artist protests that it is not his: a search page had aggregated a friend's derivative tribute piece with his work. After a beat of are you interviewing the right person, they laugh it off and MLow promises to cut it.
1996 and finding the confidence to mint
His real first piece, 1996, depicts his childhood computer, AOL chats and games, ringed with snacks, Pepsi, and drawings of Goku and Sailor Moon, offerings for the ritual of being online. He did not connect with most crypto art at first; Grant Yun's 2D illustration was the work that showed him a path, and he also credits 0xDGB and watching how confident artists talk about their own work.
The road to the first sale
No strategy beyond visibility: one tweet a day (advice he took from a Claire Silver tweet), constant self retweets, 20 or 30 likes at first, then momentum. A prominent collector with an alien avatar (the name is garbled in the transcript) bought a piece and retweeted it to a six figure following, the first big push.
Five words, one of them simple
Asked to distill his art into five words he offers simple, ordinary, sharp, and nice, and MLow points out the joke: the first word is simple even though complex is in his name. The artist agrees; the process is about making things simple for himself because everything else is so complicated.
Process and AI tools
iPhone snapshots of anything interesting, research into past artists, traditional sketching in a sketchbook or Photoshop, and lately Midjourney as a visualization tool, including feeding his own artwork back in. MLow explains Stable Diffusion versus Midjourney (open source, more control, build your own model) and recommends Runway ML for turning stills into five second clips.
The laundry basket piece
A response to the Rolling Stone NFTs are dead article: the party is over, go do your laundry. The basket hides Ringers circles, a Fidenza scarf, a Pudgy Penguins wizard hat, 3D glasses, a skull mask, a squiggle gummy worm, an mfers cigarette, headphones, and a gray hoodie, the iconic traits of the last two years headed for the wash.
How to mint it
The piece is unminted because he cannot decide on format in a down market. MLow suggests a trait gated mint (hold one of the referenced traits to mint), a one of one, or a limited edition of 10 to 15, and notes so cmplxd's demand runs deeper than most artists' in the space.
The Cabal Foundation drop
MLow invites him to contribute an edition or one of one to a curated Foundation collection of 50 artists from the Cabal group chat, launching around the end of October. He also passes on group chat survival advice: do not scroll up, just dive in where the conversation is.
In their words
“Everyone in our lives is so depending on being in front of the little screen, almost like a ritual.”
so cmplxd“I just kind of follow the intuition alone to what I want to make.”
so cmplxd“I thought it was kind of fun to feed the algorithm something delicious.”
so cmplxd“It's still complicated after being here for two years now. Every month ideas change and trends change.”
so cmplxd“I don't want to keep being a salesman. I just always do everything on Twitter and let it grow naturally.”
so cmplxdCite this conversation
so cmplxd in conversation with MLow, "MLow X so cmplxd," The MLow Show, unaired recording, 29 Sep 2023. https://show.mlow.xyz/e/2023-09-29-mlow-x-so-cmplxd.html. Quoted from a machine transcript.
Quotations come from machine transcripts. Check wording against the audio before republishing.