History of PVA

Pure Vision Arts (“PVA”) is Manhattan’s only full-time professional art studio and exhibition space that serves artists with neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism.

We support our artists by encouraging community building, self-expression and creative development, and by providing potential economic empowerment.

Our studio was inspired by Oakland’s Creative Growth which opened in 1974 as the nation’s first independent visual art center for artists with neurodevelopmental conditions.

PVA champions full inclusion – social, artistic and economic – for artists who have traditionally been excluded from accessing and participating in our city’s mainstream arts organizations and institutions. We work to promote the contributions made by our neurodiverse artists to contemporary folk art.

The art produced at PVA is enjoyed by a growing audience, including many serious collectors of Outsider art. Our goal is to continue expanding the public’s awareness of the cultural vibrancy of the art created by artists with unique neurological perspectives.

Enter PVA on a typical day, and you will find as many as 25 artists painting, drawing, sculpting and working with textiles. They are sharing their ideas and mentoring each other as they work. The emphasis is on ability rather than disability, and the focus is on the artistic process.