24 Oct 2023/20 min/Other World
MLow X Other World
A bioengineering PhD candidate making dark art with bright colors explains collage built from classical paintings, hidden Armenian Easter eggs, and quality over quantity.
Other World is a dark fantasy artist who is also, invisibly, a bioengineering PhD candidate spending eight to ten hours a day in the lab. His origin is a lockdown story: labs closed during Covid, he picked up an iPad for a second try, abandoned imitating canvas painting, and instead built a collage practice, cutting and recoloring existing images found online, making a piece a day to match whatever song he was listening to. When NFTs reached him via Twitter in late 2020, he deliberately slowed down: fewer pieces, each meant to hold a museum viewer's attention rather than one second of a social feed. Today his work still roots in collage, sourcing classical paintings from WikiArt and high resolution archives, with his own drawn characters layered over historical backgrounds and poppy artificial color slammed against realistic period palettes.
The name Other World was meant for a streetwear brand that never launched; the art took over and the name stuck, and it still fits: each piece shows another side of reality, human nature and often its dark side, scenes that may not literally have happened in history but almost certainly nearly did. He walks through his latest AOTM mint, Trail of Fire, dancers on fire titled from a Pendulum lyric (we will be free again, from Propane Nightmares), and reveals that every piece carries Easter eggs, some in Armenian, some hidden so deep viewers must adjust contrast and values to find them.
The craft advice is the sharpest part: mint less and better, improve each piece against your own last one, let demand set price, and never take the quick money. His gentle dismantling of the nobody appreciates my work complaint, that composition, contrast and balance are objective and it is usually not the audience's fault, is the clearest anti cope statement in the archive. He refuses coffee mug commercialization, barely markets at all, and dreams of designing a custom Porsche 911.
What this episode teaches
- Less quantity, more quality
Other World moved from a piece a day on Instagram to works taking more than a week, built to be looked at in a gallery, not scrolled past. Minting less while visibly improving is also his pricing mechanism: demand follows the progression, and price follows demand.
- Improve against your own last piece
His iteration loop is self referential: was the composition lacking last time, can he zoom out, add detail, make a larger scene. Experiments that fail need not be posted, and posts need not be minted; posting and minting are separate decisions.
- It is usually not the audience's fault
He validates the feeling that nobody appreciates your work, then refuses the excuse: art that gains popularity is not purely subjective. Color balance, contrast and composition are objective craft variables, and the fix is comparing your quality honestly against what hangs in museums and galleries.
- The energy test for an art career
Before selling anything, art should add value to your life on its own. If making it drains energy and feels like a hassle, art is probably not right for that person; if it adds to your life, keep going.
- Take the long career over the quick money
Early on he received offers that looked like easy money and declined them all, judging them worse in the long run. Prioritizing long term career over short term profit is the one piece of advice he offers every artist.
- The work can be the whole marketing plan
An introvert who rarely tweets, he posts a finished piece, shares it in a few group chats, and stops. He is a working counterexample to the post constantly orthodoxy: a strong collector base built almost purely on the art itself.
- Protect the intended display
He would not print his art on a coffee mug or phone case because that is not how it was meant to be taken in, and he seeks institutions that do not over commercialize. There is no right or wrong, he says, but the display context is part of the work.
- Royalties: honor beats enforcement
He accepts royalties cannot be fully enforced on chain and thinks 10 percent was probably too much, with 2.5 to 5 percent fair. Collectors who respect an artist should honor the royalty the artist intended, and some still do.
The conversation, topic by topic
Lockdown, the iPad, and collage
A lifelong for fun artist, he stopped in college, then restarted during Covid when his graduate labs closed. A first iPad attempt failed because he painted like canvas; the second try worked when he switched to collage: cutting found images, recoloring, drawing on top, making a piece a day to match a song's feeling, posting to a new Instagram meant to seed a clothing brand.
Slowing down for the gallery wall
Around mid to late 2020 he joined Twitter, heard about NFTs, and deliberately changed pace: from social media speed to works taking over a week, made to reward long looking. His art today keeps the collage base, sourcing classical works from WikiArt and a high resolution archive, having graduated from Pinterest and Google Images.
Dark art with bright colors
His palette strategy: poppy, artificial brights layered over the muted realistic colors of the source paintings, a contrast rooted in his early psychedelic collages. His five word self description, kept in his Twitter bio: dark art with bright colors.
What Other World means
Conceived as a streetwear brand name, it became his artist name when the art took over. It still describes the practice: showing another side of existing works and of reality, stories of human nature, often its dark side, scenes that likely almost happened in history even if the exact painted moment did not.
Trail of Fire
His most recent mint, on AOTM: dancers on fire, backgrounds collaged from paintings but characters drawn entirely by him, unusual for his practice. He started with only the image of people dancing while burning; the title and description came after, the description line (we will be free again) lifted from Pendulum's Propane Nightmares, one of the first drum and bass songs he ever loved.
Clothing, past and future
He released one clothing item with SuperRare and two pieces with a friend a year and a half or two before. After school he wants both everyday streetwear and runway pieces, wearable art too crazy for daily wear.
Getting into SuperRare
He waited rather than applying immediately, assembled his five best pieces, and re recorded the required two minute video many times out of camera shyness. Accepted, he minted his genesis (the other four submissions never minted as his style moved on) and sold his first piece for 1 ETH. Zack from SuperRare remains a big supporter.
A dream gallery and collabs
He and a fellow artist have talked about opening a gallery in Tokyo one day. His virtual deca gallery holds work by artists he collects, including Tjo and a stack of ACK color studies, plus Etiene Crauss, Sam Spratt and Grant Yun. Past collabs include a piece for a 3D artist's Dreamers collection.
AI as a small tool
He uses AI lightly, generating poses and postures as reference before drawing his own characters. He understands job loss fears across every industry, does not know whether the disruption nets positive, and believes advancements like this cannot be stopped regardless.
PhD by day, artist by night
The bioengineering PhD takes eight to ten lab hours daily, often weekends, leaving one to two hours a day for art. Science shapes his worldview and process more than his subject matter: nobody could look at the art and diagnose a bioengineer, though science inspired work may come. He expects to go full time artist within about a year.
Easter eggs and Armenian text
Every piece contains Easter eggs; some remain unfound. A few require editing the image, adjusting values and contrast, to reveal hidden content, and written elements appear in English or Armenian. MLow vows on air to start contrast hunting through other artists' work too.
Pressure, marketing, and collectors
His collectors are easygoing people he DMs and has met in real life; nobody messages him about a falling floor, but he feels the weight of not letting investors in his work down. His answer to fame's pressure: do your best and do not get down on yourself. Marketing stays minimal by temperament.
Dream collabs and display
Top of the brand wish list: Porsche, with prototype sketches for a custom 911 already drawn, plus high end runway fashion and musicians. For display he likes Danvas and Samsung screens and is producing screen prints of a texture studies collection, pairing the digital texture with the texture screen printing itself creates.
The guest flips the mic
Other World closes by interviewing MLow, who predicts attention shifting from the top 50 PFP projects to the top thousand overlooked 1/1 artists, and argues even editions should be generative, each one slightly different, because the technology makes exact duplicates unnecessary.
In their words
“I tried to mint less and less: quantity down, more quality.”
Other World“It should add value to your life without even selling the art itself. If it's taking energy away from you and it's a hassle, then I don't think art is right for that person.”
Other World“Usually it's not the audience's fault if they don't like it.”
Other World“I wouldn't put my art on a coffee mug. That's just not how I intended it to be displayed.”
Other World“Dark art with bright colors.”
Other World“They've totally disregarded the top thousand crypto artists that are making work day in and day out.”
MLowCite this conversation
Other World in conversation with MLow, "MLow X Other World," The MLow Show, 24 Oct 2023. https://show.mlow.xyz/e/2023-10-24-mlow-x-other-world.html. Quoted from a machine transcript.
Quotations come from machine transcripts. Check wording against the audio before republishing.