Songs of Love, Death & Desire | 15–24 Mar 2024
Proposition presented Songs of Love, Death & Desire, an exhibition bringing together work by Dan Llywelyn Hall, Simon Page, Glyn Dillon and resident artists at Proposition Camden. The exhibition explored the extremes of human emotion through a dynamic collection of artworks.
About
From Friday 15 to Sunday 24 March 2024, Proposition presented Songs of Love, Death & Desire, an exhibition exploring the extremes of human emotions through art.
Originally focused on the work of Dan Llywelyn Hall, Simon Page and Glyn Dillon, the exhibition also included new responses from resident artists at Proposition Camden: Nitamoreï, Jolene Liam, Yuecen Wang, Jo Gabriele Sheppard and Rayya Faldo Khuri.
The exhibition brought together a diverse collection of artworks that dynamically celebrated the universal themes of love, death, and desire. Through thought-provoking visual displays, the free exhibition offered visitors the opportunity to engage with the power of art, explore the work of local artists, and discover what Camden’s creative community had to offer.
The exhibition was open from 12–6pm each day and took place at Proposition Camden, 100a Chalk Farm Road, NW1 8EH. It welcomed artists, art enthusiasts, and anyone curious to explore the local creative scene.
Artist Biographies
Dan Llywelyn Hall
Dan Llywelyn Hall is a painter known for his vivid paintings spanning the genres of landscape and portraiture.
Llywelyn Hall brings a combination of insight and raw emotional force, to the genre of figurative art. He has a casual brushstroke which is rooted in the immediacy of the moment. His paintings, prints and drawings have a fluidity, combined with a pragmatic approach to representation seducing and disarming. Depictions of landscape both real and imagined, bring time full-circle and merge past with present. His portraits are vivid phycological probes made from direct contact with the sitters. Llywelyn Hall's paintings waveringly adhere to their source; be it en-plein-air, a photograph, news article or memory recalled.
After a commission to paint the Victoria Cross recipient, Sir Tasker Watkins, he continued on the theme of veterans focusing on the last survivors of the first World War. In 2009 the then, last surviving veteran of the trenches, Harry Patch sat for his portrait, entitled ‘The Last Tommy’ which was selected for the BP Portrait Award and exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery where it was used as the face of the marketing campaign throughout London. Following this, Henry Allingham, then the world’s oldest man aged 113 sat for his portrait entitled ‘The Last Volunteer’. Recent portrait commissions include Her Majesty the Queen, in 2013, when Dan became the youngest artist to portray the monarch, shortly followed by The Duke of Cambridge.
Other notable portraits include pop icons Amy Winehouse and Marc Almond.
Dan’s work has been exhibited extensively throughout the UK in both solo and group exhibitions in venues such as the Saatchi Gallery, The National Portrait Gallery, National Museum of Wales, Windsor Castle, MoMA Wales and others. His work appears in numerous public collections such as The Victoria Art Gallery, The Imperial War Museum, MoMA Wales, The Royal Collection, National Museum of Wales, National Library of Wales
In 2014, Dan curated 'Deaths and Entrances' exhibition in Bloomsbury, London, celebrating the 100th birthday of the poet Dylan Thomas. A series of paintings responding to Dylan’s short stories accompanied with a literary programme, became one of the highlights of the centenary year.
In 2015, Dan was appointed the first ever artist-in-residence for the 68th Cannes Film Festival, where actors sat for portraits and the sights and scenes of the area were depicted. This collection of work formed ‘Beyond the Red Carpet’ and exhibited in London.
In 2018 Dan worked on a portrait project Dambusters Reunited - inspired by the 133 men who participated in the Dams Raid of 1943.
In 2022 Dan was commissioned to paint and curate Celf Coast Cymru 10 - a collaborative series of exhibitions along the entire coast of Wales with 10 exhibitions at public spaces. The culmination of the project will take place on St David's Day, 2023.
He lives and works between London and Wales.
Simon Page
Simon Page creates drawings and paintings that explore themes of place, identity, and landscape. His recent work responds directly to the existential challenges of living in a post-pandemic, climate-crisis era dominated by geo-political uncertainty.
He was the winner of The Climate Emergency Prize at the 140th Anniversary Exhibition of the New English Art Club, an award under the Royal Patronage of HM The King. In 2026 his work has been shortlisted for the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize, The Hogarth Prize, and the Derwent Art Prize.
He has exhibited widely throughout the UK including The Royal Academy, The Royal Scottish Academy, Mall Galleries, Wells Cathedral and The Globe Theatre.
Selected Awards
2026 Highly commended, Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize
2026: Shortlisted, Derwent Art Prize
2026: Shortlisted, The Hogarth Prize
2026: Winner, The Climate Emergency Prize (New English Art Club Annual Show)
2025: Winner, The Winsor and Newton Award (New English Art Club Annual Show)
2024: Shortlisted, Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize
2024: Longlisted, Jackson’s Art Prize
2023: Shortlisted, Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize
Simon Page's work is held in private and corporate collections. Recent exhibitions include:
2026: Bankside Gallery (London); Mall Galleries (London); Snape Maltings (Suffolk); Hogarth's House (London)
2025: Wells Contemporary (Wells Cathedral); Snape Maltings (Suffolk); Waterside Arts (Manchester); Encounters Art Space (Brighton Festival); Falmouth Art Gallery
A comprehensive list of past and upcoming shows can be found on the News and Exhibitions page.
Born in 1962, he studied at the Colchester Institute and Homerton College, Cambridge, graduating in 1985. Following a 32-year teaching career in London, he moved to working as a full-time artist in 2019. He lives and works in Suffolk, as well as roaming far and wide.
Image credit: Saatchi Art
Glyn Dillon
Glyn Dillon started out wanting to be a painter, but at the age of seventeen, he impatiently followed his brother into a career drawing comics. After seven years he changed tack and spent the next fifteen exploring the world of film and advertising, as a storyboard and concept artist. Then, on returning to the world of comics, he wrote and drew the award winning graphic novel ‘The Nao of Brown’ for which, in 2013, he won ‘Best Book’ category at the British Comic Awards. Translated into six languages, the French edition, ‘Le Nao de Brown’ also garnered him the 2013 ‘Special Jury Prize’ at the world renowned ‘Angoulême International Comics Festival’.
In the past few years he has worked as a Costume Designer on the most recent Star Wars films, before going onto designing the new batsuit for ‘The Batman’ starring Robert Pattinson.