About the Exhibition

“Terra Incognita”
An Exhibition by Laura Thipphawong
Dates: November 14th to December 6th, 2025

For more information, contact gallery@riverdalehub.ca.

About the Artist

Laura Thipphawong is a Toronto-based contemporary artist, writer, and historian. She has exhibited art and presented her research internationally in commercial and non-profit galleries and various academic forums. Her surreal and narrative style of highly detailed and imaginative compositions is inspired by folklore, literature, history, science, and psychoanalysis. These various elements are pieced together to create dream-like images and hallucinatory tableaus that symbolically reflect Laura’s interpretation of emotions and experiences.

As a self-taught artist, Laura made her way from a small town in northern Ontario to Toronto to pursue a career in the arts. She now holds a medal and a Bachelor of Arts in Visual and Critical studies from OCAD University and a Master of Arts in Art History from the University of Toronto.

Laura’s work has been featured in several galleries, exhibition spaces, and publications such as CBC Arts, New Visionary Magazine, the Lieutenant Governor’s Suite in Toronto, and the National Gallery of Canada. She is also the founder and editor-in-chief of Secret Door, an online publication for critical arts writing.

Cake and Fish #1, Laura Thipphawong, Oil on Canvas

Exhbition Statement

Terra Incognita, Latin for unknown land, was a phrase originally used in cartography to describe uncharted territory. These mysterious places signified the presence of wild beasts and endless possibilities, something terrifying, yet worth exploring. This series of narrative animal images inspired by the idea of delving into the unknown, and of self-discovery and self-knowledge by way of finding connection with the natural world.

I started this series (based on historical symbolism, literature, and my own experiences with wild animals) while attending a residency in Iceland. I was reminded of growing up in an isolated and harsh northern climate, and how much easier it is to feel a sense of the sublime in such a place. I was also reminded of how deeply connected we are to stories about animals, and how intertwined are the realms of imagination and reality when we feel close to nature. I wanted to explore through these images an in-between state of truth and memory, and celebrate the unknown and uncontrollable elements of the natural world, using themes of biodiversity, extinction and extirpation, resiliency, and interconnectedness to evoke a sense of the fantastical and absurd. Questions of monstrousness, humanity, physicality, sustainability, transcendentalism, and sense of place informs the content for this series.