The Hunted (Predator Exposure Phil Hoban) 2026

Oil on Expensive European Fabric, 45cm x 35cm

 

25.2.26 (draft/unfinished)

 

Left in bodachs of your own rendition

penalty of self turned in on 

a noxious clubbing bliss 

filled with your enemies 

their voices reverberating through partitions 

their children diving around in high fronds 

stamped where I thought I had opposed

& the intimately failing dioptric luna heart 

on the ground dumb where you honour 

anima slaughter invisible 

intermediate steps its second light 

little by little desuetude of blame forgotten

rending sacrifice worth making 

the direction of the horses had to be changed

wailed to negative innocence.

Untransparent what the position is 

comes out in grief bored dark 

voice just shadows desiccated

jealous in bivouacs

of future declined to clamber into one

under pinned breath 

the first thing we should have 

spoken about & remains

gloomy elksedge partially real 

partially pain caroms 

& gambols draw a boundary between 

hind sites cruel coldnesses i do not

deserve to still ask for love 

as some defeated cycle of optimism 

rehearsed better off numbing

at the skys napping heart or longing 

the best life i am holding you back from

The Hunted (Kellie Howarth as Lolita), 2026

 

Oil on Expensive European Fabric, 45cm x 35cm

Headington Hill Hall, 2026

 

 Oil on expensive European fabric  40 cm x 36.5cm  

Oxford Italianate mansion (actually rented from Oxford City Council) dubbed the ‘best council house in the country’ was lived in by Robert Maxwell from 1959 until 1991 where he eventually moved Pergamon Press publishing hundreds of ‘international scientific journals’. It was here that his nine children were brought up, living in a combination of what was described in the Times, as 'cruelty and luxury'. 

While in situ, Maxwell commissioned a stained-glass window as a feature of the imperial staircase, a depiction of Samson (modelled on himself) by the Israeli sculptor Nehemia Azaz. The lawn doubled as a helipad from which he would jet about for business and pleasure; the grounds too, were furnished with a tennis court and swimming pool. Under Maxwell's reign, all-out parties were hosted here for lan and Kevin and Ghislaine's classmates were reportedly invited over for reading competitions (which Ghislaine consistently won, awarded first prize).

2.23.26 (draft/unfinished)

 

Now the ends are even black 

shared on the thin, V-shaped area

grass memento over the city’s river

three canticles blunted ledges & parapets

the sabotaged listening place 

manic tantras paranoid again

under the chronotope its crossing lights 

in this gelded hellscape

meaningless glom faced,

& the body in pain is itself 

an object of novelty, 

to be inspected with pleasure

to climb for rain

stowed in a dwell of aches 

the co-ordinating points

passed & re-passed

a dozen times since

I’ve become an empty vessel of 

spermless love

International Cultural Enterprises Ltd (draft/unfinished)

 

Our happiness gamifying misery

in the art of not dying 

& the victories we have won

get painfully curled 

tight from the seeded culm 

the bean counter on the rooftop bar

the highballs the end times the exhibition talk 

& The Sadist Whips the Obviously Innocent

cut from me the value but also 

a language of another, 

no bird sound

limitation of the fragile

inescapability of this kind of life

Hansabibliothek REAL CHARACTERS II

 

Readings & performances from REAL CHARACTERS II at Hansabibliothek & Cafe Tiergarden

Documentation by Hilary Jeffery 

Amel Baccouche, Kelly Ballett, Willie Brisco, Christel Conchon, Cole Denyer, Owen Fortunato Brakspear, Hilary Jeffery, Nat Kochan, Eleni Poulou, Tim Wolf. 

A proposal by Owen Fortunato Brakspear / Slub Press  Sunday, October 12th 1pm - 4pm at Hansabibliothek,  Altonaer Str 15, Hansaviertel, 10557 Berlin 4,30pm - 6pm at Café Tiergarten,  Altonaer Str 3, Hansaviertel, 10557 Berlin

 Supported by the PERSPEKTIVE Fund for Contemporary Art & Architecture of the Office for Visual Arts of the Institut français Germany, sponsored by the French Ministry of Culture, the Institut français Paris and the Goethe-Institut. @bureaudesartsvisuels With thanks to Leonie Herweg / Grotto, Elke Falat, Kristin Reinhardt & the Hansabibliothek staff.