Nils Verkaeren: The Honouring of our Roots

The Honouring of Our Roots presents a body of new plein air works by Belgian painter Nils Verkaeren, created during a 2024 residency on the Isle of Skye. The exhibition reflects a dialogue between painter, place, and process — where landscape is not depicted, but weathered through.

Nils Verkaeren’s The Honouring of Our Roots unfolds as a meditation on place and persistence. Created on the Isle of Skye in spring 2024, the works emerged from direct confrontation with climate and terrain — painted in changing light, stinging hail, and wind-lashed solitude. Across large-scale canvases and small-format panels, Verkaeren treats the act of painting as a negotiation: not with motif, but with condition. His practice resists fixity — allowing landscapes to manifest as events rather than views. Formally rooted in material presence, the works articulate the friction between gesture and environment. The collaboration with fashion house SCAPA extends this ethos into textile form, drawing out tactile echoes rather than direct translations. What binds the project is not a shared aesthetic, but a shared rhythm — slowness, vulnerability, and attention. The viewing room offers access to a selection of works from the exhibition, accompanied by the full curatorial text and documentation.