As a student at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, David Lynch wondered what it would be like if a painting could move. That jolt of inspiration led to the creation of Six Men Getting Sick, a film/painting hybrid depicting gastric distress projected on a three-dimensional canvas. At school and after, Lynch continued making live-action and animated films inspired by or evocative of dreams and nightmares. We present several of these, including one of his most poignant works, The Grandmother, a portrayal of domestic abuse and loneliness in which a distraught child grows a grandmother from seed in search of the comfort he lacks.

— Kate MacKay