Heimler & Proc – Symphony from the New World

 In their painting series 'Symphony from the New World', Heimler & Proc draw inspiration from Otto Dix’s iconic 'Grosse Stadt' (Big City). Where Dix captured the feverish atmosphere of a jazz club on the edge of a collapsing world and the anxious birth of a new, uncertain era, Heimler & Proc transpose this vision into a contemporary context.

Set against a local narrative, their musicians perform with the same underlying tension and foreboding that permeates Dix’s work. Through these paintings, the artists express their deep love for New Zealand and for music, while once again demonstrating their characteristic premonitory sensibility.

The pictorial language of Heimler & Proc is built on the vibration of colours, the dramatic opposition of light and dark, and a powerful rhythmic structure. These are the same fundamental principles found in music and — for those who know how to see — in nature itself.

With this series, they offer viewers a personal and contemporary pictorial interpretation of Antonín Dvořák’s 'Symphony from the New World', a work they consider strikingly relevant today. Through colour, light and rhythm, they seek to provide both aesthetic pleasure and moments of illumination.