Canadian filmmaker and artist Michael Snow, who was known for his iconic Toronto sculptures and experimental short films such as Wavelength and So Is This, has died.

Snow died Jan. 5 in Toronto at the age of 94, according to the Art Gallery of Ontario, which announced his death via Twitter on Jan. 6. Jack Shainman Gallery, which represented Snow, said he died in Toronto.

Born in Toronto in 1928, Snow’s slate of films includes La Région Centrale (1971), Presents (1981), One Second in Montreal (1969), and Seated Figures (1988), among others. He lived and worked in Toronto throughout his career and was deemed “one of the world’s leading experimental filmmakers,” according to Jack Shainman Gallery’s website.

A director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer and editor, Snow began his career as a film animator before moving into live-action with works including the 1964 documentary New York Eye and Ear Control: A Walking Woman Work.

Toronto International Film Festival CEO Cameron Bailey said in a statement that Snow “transformed cinema as he transformed visual art,” adding that “quietly, he demolished boundaries. His staggering attentiveness to the specifics of time and space led to masterpieces such as La Région Centrale and So Is This, the film that opened my eyes to new possibilities in experimental cinema.”

He added that it was “Wavelength, after which TIFF’s long-running Wavelengths program is named, that remains his most potent gift, always waiting to be discovered by generations of film lovers. I’m grateful that Michael chose Toronto as his home, and invited the whole world to see as he did.”

Snow studied at Upper Canada College and the Ontario College of Art, now known as OCAD University. He also received honorary degrees from the University of Toronto in 1999, the University of Victoria in 1997, the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 1990, and Brock University in 1975. He also received the Order of Canada in 1982, the Gershon Iskowitz Prize in 2011, and the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2000.

Snow is also known for his multidisciplinary artwork, including a public commission for the CF Toronto Eaton Centre entitled “Flight Stop,” as well as “The Audience” at Toronto’s Rogers Centre.

Image courtesy of Art Gallery of Ontario, taken by Craig Boyko