19 Oct 2023/57 min/Hardley
MLow X Hardley
A multidisciplinary artist explains how cold messaging sixty artists off SuperRare's Instagram stories, plus a past spanning Nelly beats and royal fan mail, built his crypto art career.
Hardley (Aeneas Middleton) describes his art as Leo DiCaprio in Inception: different levels, never one medium. He paints in oils, shoots photography, builds 3D and dabbles in code, and his signature move is fusing physical and digital, embedding tablets into wood panels so collectors hang an interactive digital work on the wall. The episode's most repeatable lesson is his outreach method: arriving on the scene in late 2021 known only for music, he messaged every artist SuperRare posted to its Instagram story, fifty or sixty in all, proposing collaborations. Enough said yes that he ran up 68 collabs and over 150,000 dollars in sales, with Gary Cartlidge collabs alone hitting roughly 10,000 dollars a piece.
The middle of the conversation is one of the wildest backstories in the archive, and he can document most of it: a basketball scholarship to Manhattan College, moving to St. Louis with a thousand dollars to chase Nelly, landing beats on The Longest Yard soundtrack and Chamillionaire's platinum Ridin' era, then retraining at Pratt in digital design when iTunes killed CD money. He wrote novels that drew thank you letters from Princes William and Harry (researched via two hundred Google Maps tabs of Wales), made a sci-fi feature, Cranium Intel, alone over four years, and became an official PlayStation partner after commissioning a game from a Ukrainian studio.
The crypto art present centers on The Detective, his interactive mystery game piece built with Transient Labs: nine scattered audio clips a viewer must puzzle into one story, exhibited in Milan and sold for 5 ETH to a collector he met at a blackjack table, who added extra money to cover the platform's cut. He closes with his target, the auction houses, and his rule that nothing gets congratulated until a painting sells for a million dollars.
What this episode teaches
- Work the story feed by hand
Unknown for visual art, Hardley messaged every artist SuperRare featured on its Instagram story, fifty or sixty cold DMs proposing collabs. Some ignored him; enough replied that collabs became his entire on ramp, roughly 68 of them and six figures in sales before he ever minted solo.
- The power of asking
His mother's line, which he repeats as doctrine: you could probably get a million nos, but you never know. It got him Nelly, the SuperRare artists, and a first time collector recruited at a blackjack table.
- Collabs are a school
Working with dozens of artists taught him operations: one collaborator preps every drop in a Google Doc with titles and descriptions finalized before anything goes online. He credits his music producer background for knowing how to absorb other artists' methods into his own.
- Trust your collaborator's eye
On a pixelated collab he doubted, his partner insisted on leaving elements alone; the next day FVCKRENDER was bidding on it. His conclusion: collaboration is trusting other people's vision, a brotherhood, and every time he trusted it he was right.
- Word of mouth is the metric
He says Universal told him hot artists are picked by how people talk on the street, not money. He promotes every drop like a movie release, and notes his Beeple derivative blew up precisely when he stopped pushing and just released the art.
- Turn a public shaming into a sale
After a collector publicly blasted him for tagging, and names piled on, another collector DMed the next day saying do not let anybody tell you who you can tag, and bought the artwork. His takeaway: handle etiquette privately, and supporters reveal themselves in the backlash.
- Sell the piece before you mint it
Post ATH his rule changed: no further mints on SuperRare or elsewhere unless a buyer is effectively already lined up. Make art, share it, and let the mint follow the demand.
- Study the old masters for patience
He watches hundreds of Sotheby's and Christie's evening sales and studies de Kooning, George Condo, Picasso and da Vinci rather than living artists, because paintings that took twenty years taught him the patience gap between him and where he wants to be.
The conversation, topic by topic
Art with levels
Hardley describes his practice as multi layered, Leo DiCaprio in Inception: oils, photography, 3D, some coding, pushed toward hybrid physical digital work. His collabs embed tablets into wood panels so the collector gets the digital piece, the collab and the physical in one package; The Puppet Master was hard to let go.
The SuperRare cold outreach campaign
Arriving late 2021 and judging SuperRare the pinnacle, he DMed every artist from its Instagram stories, fifty to sixty in total. The first yes came from an artist (roughly transcribed as Animatic) who had never added sound to his drawings; their piece sold for about ten times the artist's usual price, triggering what he calls the rainfall of collabs, including several with Gary Cartlidge at around 10,000 and 9,800 dollars each.
Photography collabs and getting onto SuperRare
Prompted by collector BatSoupYum's love of photography, he reasoned movies are just moving stills and began collabing with photographers, including the Dreadlocked Traveler and two Ukrainian sisters. After about 68 collabs, a SuperRare team member (roughly David Feinstein) hosting a Space with him was shocked he was not on the platform and got him in.
From Rochester art school to Nelly
He touched digital drawing on computers in 1988 at age eight, attended School of the Arts in Rochester, New York, then took a basketball scholarship to Manhattan College. Rap ambitions sent him to St. Louis with a thousand dollars and a CD of beats; two and a half years later Nelly took beats for The Longest Yard soundtrack, and he met him at the MTV glass house.
Platinum, gold, and the iTunes cliff
Placements followed with Chamillionaire (his first platinum album, the Ridin' era) and Pretty Ricky (first gold plaque). Around 2006 iTunes gutted CD sales, so he spent every dollar going back to school at Pratt for digital design and interactive media: Maya, Mudbox, HTML, Photoshop, Illustrator. He later taught summer courses at Pratt and worked at Columbia University.
Novels and Buckingham Palace
His novel Tim Hartwell and the Brutus of Troy, written using two hundred Google Maps tabs of Wales for street level accuracy, reached the royal family after a simple YouTube book signing video. A royal messenger visited in 2012, followed by letters from Prince William and Prince Harry. He later sold paintings to royal buyers under a confidential commission. His birth name Aeneas links to the Brutus legend itself.
Cranium Intel and Fire Angels
Inspired by Avatar, he signed a three picture deal with Fantastic Films International for a sci-fi trilogy, Cranium Intel, based on his own novel, and spent four years making the feature alone at four in the morning. A Fire Angels trailer hit the top 40 in America and the film ran on the Sci-Fi Channel, drawing calls from studios including Warner Brothers.
PlayStation partner
When VR broke out he hired a Ukrainian studio to build a game, shipped it on Steam, and interest led to an official PlayStation partnership with the ability to release IPs on the platform, though Covid disrupted the launch. He says any VR art he makes will grow from that experience.
The Detective on Transient Labs
After a Transient Labs hire he knew left SuperRare, he pitched an interactive idea, praising founder Ben as an underrated genius. Instead of an interactive oil painting he built a playable mystery thriller with AI assisted visuals plus Photoshop and After Effects: one long audio story cut into nine clips the player reassembles. Inspired partly by what he felt Sam Spratt's Monument Game could have done better, it drew DMs from collectors including Redbeard, was exhibited in Milan, and sold for 5 ETH.
The blackjack table collector
His collector for The Detective, KS, was met at a casino blackjack table where he explained Web3; it became her first piece. Learning artists forfeit 15 to 20 percent to platforms, she added money to cover the fee. He met another collector by chance playing cards at Crypt Gallery in New York.
The tagging incident
He once tagged a collector in a tweet and was publicly called out for it, with Grant Yun and others amplifying the etiquette lesson; he barely slept. The next day a collector DMed support and, with a partner named roughly Ruben, bought the artwork, turning the pile on into a sale.
The Beeple derivative that went viral
On Christmas he re released a previously deleted zero like artwork as a Beeple derivative, roughly titled The One Millionth Day. He woke to notifications ringing every five seconds: about 9,000 dollars in secondary sales from a free mint. Beeple messaged him Merry Christmas, take this to the moon, and later welcomed him at the Beeple Studios opening, where his humility struck Hardley.
Screens in paintings and the collab package
Building past ThankYouX's screen embedded work, his model gives collectors three things at once: the digital collab, each artist's piece, and the tablet in wood physical, which cost him about 2,000 dollars to fabricate. Sulo, a fellow Connecticut artist, did three pieces with him; he also approached Xer0x. He learned drop organization from Sulo's pre planned Google Docs.
Auction houses or bust
His stated goal is Christie's and Sotheby's, the room with deep pockets he cannot otherwise reach, encouraged by ThankYouX's account that a solo show opened the auction house door. He plans a New York solo show of paintings, hybrids and screens, an open edition where holders compete Mission Impossible style for a 1/1, and no self congratulation until a painting hits a million dollars. He still manages a restaurant 45 to 50 hours a week, with everything after hours going to Web3.
In their words
“My art is Leo DiCaprio in Inception. There's different levels to it.”
Hardley“Every time SuperRare would post an IG story, I would reach out to that artist. This ended up becoming fifty, sixty artists.”
Hardley“My mother always told me the power of asking. You could probably get a million nos, but you never know.”
Hardley“Billion dollar companies telling me that what they choose on art is from word of mouth. That's when I really realized the power of people talking about you.”
Hardley“Until it's a million dollar painting, I'm not gonna congratulate myself. Until then it's really just learning and experimenting.”
HardleyCite this conversation
Hardley in conversation with MLow, "MLow X Hardley," The MLow Show, unaired recording, 19 Oct 2023. https://show.mlow.xyz/e/2023-10-19-mlow-x-hardley.html. Quoted from a machine transcript.
Quotations come from machine transcripts. Check wording against the audio before republishing.