Danny: I Made You Up | Quintus Glerum & Christos Mavrodis

During Amsterdam Art Week 2025, Josilda da Conceição presents the exhibition I Made You Up, in which artists Quintus Glerum and Christos Mavrodis jointly create a fictional character. The opening will take place during the Festive Gallery Night on Thursday 22 May between 17:00 and 21:00.

At the core of the exhibition is the common ground discovered by the two artists, Quintus Glerum and Christos Mavrodis. This is intimately linked to their process of personifying fictional characters. United by a shared fascination with narrative, the exhibition presents their storytelling exploration through a spatial interpretation of a character study.

Both artists have previously produced individual works from the perspective of fictional personae—notable examples include Life of Lucy and Kiki’s Wonderful Little Worlds. For them, creating work through a fictional lens often serves as a means of processing and reflecting on personal experiences. For this exhibition at Josilda da Conceição, the roles are reversed: the character is conceived collaboratively by both artists.

A shared vision and common experiences lay the foundation for a character yearning to be seen, understood, and heard. This creative process, forged in mutual dialogue and expressed across diverse media, blurs the boundaries between the fictional and the real. The personality emerges as a shared construction, shaped by the confluence of two distinct perspectives, yet feeling profoundly familiar.

The concept of shared space encompasses a diverse body of collaborative works where various modes of artistic expression converge, including painting, installation, and interactive video game simulations. Each piece uniquely investigates the environments fashioned for characters to inhabit, offering an intriguing dialogue between the character’s fictional realm and the artistic medium deployed. By weaving elements of visual art with digital storytelling, the artists challenge conventional boundaries between external reality and internal experience—both for the creators and the viewer. Through this approach, they not only interrogate the ownership of creative work, but also probe the tension between fiction and reality, defying traditional notions of authorship and narrative.

Visit the gallery during the Festive Gallery Night or at any other time throughout Amsterdam Art Week.