‘The Landscape is My Alibi’ is an installation Verkaeren created between December 3 and March 3, 2021, in his Antwerp studio. The work consists of 324 wooden panels, 17x22 cm, and are all an act of resistance. As the world was not allowed to travel Verkaeren travelled in his imagination.

Despite this forced stationary phase in Verkaerens life, all these dreamy travel rapports containe a lot of energetic movements. Before Verkaeren painted places now he painted paint. At this moment he realized nature was not his subject but an alibi to analyse the act of painting itself.

Verkaeren became curious and he started to wonder: would there exist similar landscapes in reality? This question captivated him to the point that he developed a mobile atelier and started to travel the world with 18 canvasses, ten times the size of the wooden panels. Although the larger size he still applied the same technique of erasing and rewinding. The paintings symbolise the time he spended in a the landscape, the heat, the wind, they are a painterly reaction against photography, thee are a celebration of my medium: oil paint.