Resemblings — omotesound

PHONON presents: Resemblings

by Reinhard Vanbergen, Diana Monkhorst & Charlotte Caluwaerts

PHONON presents: Resemblings invites you to a multidimensional experience of the creative process:

Diana Monkhorst’s floral still-life compositions, shown in large scale on canvas, beckon the eyes to richly provocative visual worlds.

Reinhard Vanbergen carries us into the realm of the audible with his Daily Daisies, delivered with crystal clarity on Japanese-made PHONON headphones. The eight inspired and “inspired by” creations lead us into Monkhorst’s photographic worlds on rhythmic journeys that hang on flower petals, dance with shadows, and bask in the light.

Charlotte Caluwaerts’ (Lavender for Love) unique scentscapes accompany each sitting, further highlighting and synchronizing with sight and sound.

Blending three artistic mediums and engaging three of the five traditional human senses (sight, sound, and scent), Resemblings is a meditation on human experience and creativity, an immersion into the liminal zone where the visual, the audible, and the olfactory—the sensible and the conceptual—blend and converse.

Inspiring works of art are alike in many ways, whatever their medium. From painting to dancing, music to photography, writing to sculpture, the culinary or olfactory arts—all art springs forth from the creative mind. The process of creating art, a complex combination of factors, is itself a kind of art form. Art, in other words, does not exist of its own accord. Passion, persistence, sacrifice, and métier give it life, as do the tools, the subject, the setting, the senses. A painter’s canvas and brush are just as important as the daylight in the room, the sounds dancing in their ears (even if only the sound of silence), the scents wafting in from the garden. Each element builds the experience and together makes the art.

Struck by these “resemblings,” composer and multi-instrumentalist Reinhard Vanbergen set out to discover and converse with the creative minds and processes of non-musical artists, and to document those journeys in “inspired by” albums. Belgium’s star chef Kobe Desramault inspired the first album, Souvenirs De Bon Goûte, co-created with Charlotte Caluwaerts and released on Music for Dreams. Coloured Cones, the second album of the series, turned to celebrated Belgian painter Michaël Borremans. The layered soundscapes of Daily Daisies, the third “inspired by” album, flow out from eight photographs by Diana Monkhorst.

REINHARD VANBERGEN is a Ghent-based mulit-instrumentalist and producer. A graduate of the Royal Conservatory of Ghent (2001), where he now teaches, Reinhard has been producing and composing since his career first took flight in the early 2000s. Reinhard’s lengthy roster of clients and collaborators spans bands (School is Cool, dEUS, Hercules and Love Affair, Tessa Dixson, DIRK., High Hi, The Hickey Underworld), brands (Vivienne Westwood); TV shows (Storm Lara, A Good Year, Glad IJs); commercials (European Union, Sonhouse, Leitmotiv, Caviar, and Roses Are Blue); and films, including the acclaimed short animated film Ticking Away by Michael Sewnarian (2016) for which he won a “best soundtrack” award. And, of course, Reinhard plays internationally with bands of his own: Das Pop, The Happy, and currently Rheinzand and the M.E.S.O. project. Since 2020, Reinhard has turned his attention to solo albums, releasing three records on the Danish label Music for Dreams under his own name and continuing with no fewer than fourteen more albums to date, many in collaboration with Charlotte Caluwaerts.

DIANA MONKHORST works as a full-time artist with photography as her medium. She graduated from the Rietveld Academy with a specialty in portraiture. From an initial love of portraits, her interests have turned more and more toward still life, but the approach remains the same. Diana works to get as close as possible to the essence of the chosen subject. In her photography she deliberately uses dark backgrounds, creating similar effects as the old masters; namely, the chosen subject is made visible in all its naked beauty. As for the choice of flowers, they serve as a comforting reminder, a reassurance, that throughout the ages and despite wars, natural disasters and the rapidly changing world, something stays constant. Flowers have been gratefully used in art since time immemorial. Herein for Diana lies the wondrous power of nature. The wondrous power of Diana’s art is twofold: on the one hand, it conveys beauty and strength and nudges us to think deeply; on the other hand, it effortlessly brings happiness to anyone who looks at it.

CHARLOTTE CALUWAERTS translates the world’s words, wonders, and indignations into sensory forms. She delights in harnessing the freedom and power of creating something out of nothing, and in bringing people together in closer connection while doing it. With a background in classical languages (Latin and Greek) and academic degrees and certificates in music, modern languages, education, literature, theatre, film, social work, and herbal sciences, Charlotte enjoys a rich, multifaceted career bridging music, education, and wellness. Whether she’s commanding the spotlight on stage and in the public eye (most notably as the frontwoman of bands like Rheinzand and Tundra) or weaving magic behind the scenes with provocative sounds and smells, Charlotte embodies a spirited tenacity and hopeful curiosity in her every step. Her boutique all-organic skin care line, Lavenderforlove, shows us with crystal clarity just how much she is dedicated to nurturing the human senses—all of them.

PHONON is a new-generation Japanese audio brand passionate about conveying the imagination of music in pure, original sound. Founded in 2010 by sound professionals, musicians, and music lovers in Tokyo (sound engineer and mastering music producer Isao Kumano, DJ and music producer Alex from Tokyo, audio technician Yusuke Uchiyama), PHONON produces state-of-the-art Japanese professional audio equipment. The PHONON line-up includes the award-winning flagship “big studio sound in your ears” SMB-01L, the popular reference and studio monitoring headphones SMB-02 (Subtonic Monitor Basic headphones), the hi-end portable stereo monitor speaker Music Life ML-2, and more.

Art space ONTSTEKING, located at the end of the Ghent docks, is a diamond in the rough of Ghent’s creative scene. Part of a larger site populated by artists, filmmakers, furniture makers, etc., Ontsteking provides a welcoming and free canvas for artistic experimentations and collaborative encounters.

(text by Lindsey DeWitt Prat)