Down Wind (1973)

Pat O’Neill (USA) is an artist and filmmaker born in Los Angeles in 1939. His startling, surrealistic, and humorous film compositions are achieved through mastery of animation and optical printing techniques. O’Neill’s drawings, collages, sculptures, films, and installations often reveal a complex interest in the connections and clashes between the natural world and human civilization. He received an MA in Moving Image Art from UCLA in 1964. His work has been featured in many prominent exhibitions such as the groundbreaking Electric Art at UCLA, multiple editions of the Whitney Biennial, Art and Film Since 1945: Hall of Mirrors at Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), and Los Angeles: The Birth of an Art Capital at Centre Pompidou. His films have won numerous festival prizes including the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival for Water and Power (1989), along with awards received from Creative Capital, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Rockefeller Foundation, and American Film Institute. His works are in the permanent collections of the Hammer Museum, Pacific Film Archive, Walker Art Center, Chicago Art Institute, Carnegie Museum of Art, and Whitney Museum of American Art, among many other institutions. The complete collection of his films is held by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Film Archive. Water and Power was added to the National Film Registry in 2008. Pat O’Neill is a living legend who lives and works in Los Angeles, California.