Blooming Desert – Nils Verkaeren
27 September – 30 November 2025
Cultuurcentrum Ter Dilft, Bornem
Introduction
Buysse Gallery is pleased to announce Blooming Desert, a solo exhibition by Belgian artist Nils Verkaeren at Cultuurcentrum Ter Dilft, Bornem. The exhibition runs from 27 September to 30 November 2025, with an opening weekend featuring a free vernissage and two special concerts in dialogue with the works.
About the Exhibition
The paintings of Nils Verkaeren bring nature close, yet never literally. As a contemporary plein-air painter, Verkaeren does not depict what lies before him but what he undergoes: shifting light, dissolving mist, drought gnawing, the struggle with the elements. His works are not impressionistic transcriptions but embodiments of experience and intensity — precisely the tension evoked by the title Blooming Desert.
For this project, Verkaeren worked at the Gloriëttehoeve in Weert (Bornem), a historic estate along the Scheldt. The landscape revealed a double aspect: trees shedding their leaves early, branches heavy with fruit, soil rich and clayey yet holding back its abundance. Since the river itself could not be seen from the site, Verkaeren sought the Scheldt elsewhere. Its withheld presence became a counterpoint in his paintings, balancing the reticence of the land.
This physical proximity is inscribed in the works themselves. Fruits were mixed into the paint, allowing the landscape to write itself into the canvas. From close view, the paintings are dense fields of gestures and sculptural pigment; from afar, trees and fruit emerge. One tree returns again and again, planted by the estate’s owner and his father — a marker of memory, as fragile as the rest of the terrain.
Although often compared to Impressionism, Verkaeren’s practice is rooted in another tradition. From Frank Auerbach he inherits the conviction that paint must be material and weighty; from Joseph Albers an attention to tone and nuance; from Cy Twombly the rhythm of the gesture; from Gerhard Richter the question of completion. Like Richard Diebenkorn, Verkaeren seeks the fault lines where color, time, and space intersect.
Performative Dimension
Together with soprano Elise Caluwaerts and art historian Eva Wuytjens, Verkaeren has conceived a performative extension of the exhibition. During Blooming Desert, audiences are invited to contemplate a single painting in silence while music unfolds. No phones, no distractions. Each song opens a new canvas. The works function as scores, the music as a key to concentration.
Opening Weekend
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Saturday 27 September, 19:00 – Vernissage (free)
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Sunday 28 September, 11:00 & 14:00 – Concerts among the paintings with soprano Elise Caluwaerts and pianist Monika Dars
Practical Information
Venue: Cultuurcentrum Ter Dilft
Sint-Amandsesteenweg 41-43, 2880 Bornem
Dates: 27 September – 30 November 2025
Admission: Free (except concerts)
