Dora Budor
Croatia b.1984

Origin I (A Stag Drinking);
Origin II (Burning of the Houses);
Origin III (Snow Storm) 2019
Three custom environmental chambers (reactive electronic system, compressor, valves, 3D printed elements, aluminium, acrylic, LED light, glass, wood, paint), organic and synthetic pigments, diatomaceous earth, FX dust, felt, ed. 3/3
Purchased 2021. Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation

Like terrariums cradling prehistoric landscapes, the three vitrines of Dora Budor’s Origins I–III 2019 seem anchored in a time before plants, trees or life as we know it. Deposits of pigment and dust erupt from volcano mounds in a process resembling the early evolution of our atmosphere.

The activation of each vitrine’s rhythmic output of air is governed by the noise of a nearby building site. When the site is busy, the chambers fill with a quick-moving haze; when external activity slows, the dust circulates to a gentler rhythm. For Budor, this link between the external activity and the work’s display gives expression to the way humanity constantly reshapes the environment.

There is another influence on these works, which the artist describes as ‘colour fields in motion’. Each chamber references the hues in three paintings by renowned English Romantic painter Joseph Mallord William Turner. Britain’s rapid transformation in the industrial age of Turner’s lifetime brought about ‘a completely new type of air: dusty, foggy, and palpable atmosphere’, as Budor recounts.