This winter, Laura Thipphawong invites you to snowy Canada as she is set to unveil her latest exhibition ‘Historia Animalium’ at Rotunda Gallery in Kitchener, Ontario. From November 2024, ‘Historia Animalium’ will allow visitors to experience a diverse collection of work that explores Laura’s passion for natural history and science through a surreal, thought-provoking and often humorous lens. With themes ranging from biodiversity and interconnectedness to life and death, ‘Historia Animalium’ is sure to bring visitors closer to the natural world.
Historia Animalium
Exhibition Dates: November – December 2024
Rotunda Gallery
Rotunda Gallery | City Hall, 200 King Street West, Kitchener, Ontario
Opening Hours: Monday – Fridays 7am. to 9pm, Weekends and Statutory holidays 9am to 9pm
About Historia Animalium //
‘Historia Animalium’ is an upcoming exhibition soon to be on display at Rotunda Gallery in City Hall in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada all through November and December 2024. This collection is an offshoot of a larger series created by Laura titled ‘Terra Incognita’, which started during a 2021 residency in Iceland, where she was inspired by the local folklore, history, humor, and darkness imbued in the culture, specifically centered around the idea of fantastical animals and their relationship to humans. This subject matter relates directly to Laura’s previous studies of how natural history and science plays into the collective perspective of the monstrous in a long-standing view of the world as anthropocentric.
Themes of biodiversity, extinction and extirpation, resiliency, and interconnectedness are used to evoke a sense of the fantastical and absurd contrasted with child-like wonder and humor. Stylistically the work takes on a continuous sense of motion and disorder and contains visual references to historical etchings of animals and beasts, as well as symbols of life, death, finery, and wildness.
About Laura Thipphawong //
Laura Thipphawong is an artist, writer, and historian, and has exhibited art and presented her research throughout several galleries and international academic forums. Laura made her way from a small town in northern Ontario to Toronto to pursue a career in the arts, and 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. Her studio practice in oil painting and drawing is representative of her research on the complex narrative symbolism of the psyche in response to various social and emotional factors, with focus on sexuality, horror, folklore, literature, and natural science.
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.
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