The first thing you notice when you step into Emmett Kyoshi Wilson’s house is not the art itself, but the way it has claimed the place. It spreads. Paintings cover walls, lean in stacks, rest against door frames. The Glenview ranch house where Emmett lives with his parents feels less like a home displaying art than one shaped by it.
Some of the work migrates beyond the house. Pieces rotate through Art + Science Salon, his father’s West Loop hair salon turned concept gallery, where haircuts happen beneath canvases.
Emmett answers the door wearing a blue T-shirt stamped with three darker blue letters: YEP. When I ask what it means, he grins. “Yes, Everything’s Possible!”
It sounds cheerful until you spend time with him and realize it is less slogan than worldview.
Emmett is an abstract artist with Down syndrome. He’s also a drummer, dancer, ventriloquism devotee, budding nonprofit founder and, depending on who you ask, a teacher. His middle name, Kyoshi, is Japanese for teacher, a choice his parents made long before they understood how literal it would become. Kathy Menighan tells me she realized early on that her son would be instructing them.
At 20, with his 21st birthday approaching this spring, Emmett carries the ease of someone who has been making art most of his life. Painting has been part of his world since early childhood, not as an extracurricular but as a language that arrived naturally. While reading and writing came slowly, painting showed up fluent.
The canvases are large, expressive and often explosive. Thick lines loop and collide. Colors clash, then find harmony. A painting titled “Dragon,” roars with saturated reds and electric blues, its sense of motion unmistakable even without a literal form. When I point to the original hanging near the kitchen dinette, Emmett nods proudly. He painted it for his father’s birthday.
“He has no preconceived ideas,” Kathy says. “He just walks up to the canvas and starts creating. It’s all emotion.”
That freedom began out of necessity. Emmett struggled to hold a pencil, so Kathy handed him sponge brushes instead. They turned it into a game, dancing to music as he painted. Over time, encouragement gave way to confidence, then fluency.
Music remains inseparable from the process. Emmett paints to Elvis, the Beatles, Michael Jackson and Coldplay. He sings, dances, sometimes recruits one of his beloved puppets to join in. His den feels less like a bedroom than an artist’s cave, complete with an electronic drum kit and band stickers lining the walls. YouTube is paused on Rick Beato. Kathy says he watches for hours, playing along. Dave Grohl is a favorite, especially “Learn to Fly” with the Muppets.
Over the years, Emmett has produced roughly 300 works, moving through distinct periods. There was a black-and-white phase. A softer era built around pale hues, punctuated by purple and red. He often sketches before layering paint, then titles finished pieces with names that read like small poems: “Flow Like the Wind.” “Walk in the Path.”
When I ask what he wants for his life, he answers without hesitation. “To help the community.”
That answer sits at the center of everything that followed. Emmett paints, he tells me, because it allows him to help people. Proceeds from his work now support The VisAbility Foundation, launched in September 2025, with a mission to creatively reimagine and redefine ability. The foundation is both practical and philosophical. It allows Emmett to work, earn and give back without jeopardizing essential benefits, while elevating other neurologically divergent artists.
“He only wants to give his money away,” Kathy says, smiling. “So there will always be a component where he gives back.”
This spring, around his birthday, Emmett will stage a solo show unlike any he’s done before. For the first time, original works will be offered for sale. Until now, only three paintings have ever left the family’s hands. The goal is not exclusivity, but longevity — a sustainable business.
His public journey began years ago. Emmett’s first exhibition took place in 2017, when he was 12, raising thousands of dollars for the National Association of Down Syndrome. From there, opportunities unfolded organically. His work has appeared in corporate collaborations, international settings and academic conversations around neurodiversity, expanding his audience without narrowing his purpose.
This winter, that reach continues. In February, Emmett will travel to Houston as a featured artist for ReelAbilities Houston, exhibiting at Laura Rathe Gallery and Sabine Street Studios. A portion of the proceeds will benefit The Celebration Company Foundation. He’ll also bring technology from VibrantCast, a Chicago-based art platform he works with, using QR codes and interactive tools to deepen the experience.
Earlier this year, Emmett traveled to Las Vegas to visit Terry Fator, the ventriloquist he idolized as a child. Years ago, Emmett painted an entire collection inspired by Fator’s puppets. They are friends now. “Thick as thieves,” Kathy says.
As we talk, Kathy tells Emmett how proud she is. Emmett listens, then smiles. “You are the most wonderful mom I ever had.”
She laughs, then tells him he has a rare ability to bring people together. That he paints without ego. That he teaches acceptance simply by being himself.
One of Emmett’s lessons, she says, is about emotion. He invents words for feelings. Frustration is “squinto.” During the isolation of COVID, he painted through that feeling and titled the work “Squintotistic.”
When New York City comes up — where they will attend the National Down Syndrome Society gala in March — Emmett leaps up and moonwalks across the room. They saw “MJ the Musical” three times, he tells me. He loves musicals. He loves cities. He loves people.
I ask who his favorite artist is.
“Jackson Pollock is the most fantastic artist,” he says, grinning.
It tracks. Pollock’s work was about movement, freedom, instinct. About trusting the line.
Kathy points out the single transverse palmar crease on Emmett’s hand, a line that helped doctors identify his Down syndrome days after he was born. She traced it with her finger and told him someday they would make a documentary about his life.
“It’s going to be called ‘It Starts With a Line,’” she says.
In Emmett’s world, the line keeps moving outward. Across canvases. Across rooms. Across communities.
Yes, everything’s possible!
“Painting arrived fully formed, a language he could speak without friction.”
“He paints without ego. He teaches acceptance simply by being himself, bringing people together through emotion, movement and generosity.”