Autism has been in the news lately. Despite widespread understanding among medical professionals that it isn’t a disease but a largely genetic difference in neurotype — or, in how people’s brains process information — U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has claimed that it’s something he can and should “solve.” Autism is a polarizing topic, provoking plenty of misinformation, speculation and argument.
Given that context, it’s all the more important to pay attention when people with autism represent their own visions and voices, as Larry Bissonnette does in “Seeing Eye,” a solo show of his work on view through December at the Hesterly Black, upstairs from the Phoenix Gallery in Waterbury.
On October 25, the venue hosted a 15th-anniversary screening of Wretches & Jabberers, the 2011 documentary that followed Bissonnette and his friend and fellow autism advocate Tracy Thresher as they traveled the world to meet other people with autism who use what’s known as “facilitated communication.” In the film and during a Q&A afterward, Bissonnette typed while his longtime aide, Pascal Cheng, steadied him with a hand on his shoulder.
Though a Google search will lead to endless comment threads and rabbit holes regarding the validity of the technique, the state’s Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living recognizes the service as effective with proper training. Regardless of any outside controversy about his typed words — which Bissonnette, now 68, has enthusiastically embraced as his own since learning facilitated communication at age 34 — his voice comes through loud and clear in his visual art.
The show, curated by Saint Michael’s College music professor William Ellis, presents 12 of Bissonnette’s paintings and works on paper, many including Polaroid images, created between 1988 and 2003. Bissonnette also constructed the wooden frames, which are integral to the artworks and often favor a long, horizontal format.
Some works have autobiographical elements, such as “Brandon Training School VT.” About 4 feet wide by 20 inches tall, the composition is divided in half vertically, with red-tinged black at the bottom and a swirling gray-and-lavender cloud above containing the date 2002, the year it was made. The title is written in large letters across the middle, with a photo of someone in a pink feather boa taped over it in the center. The training school was where Bissonnette grew up, institutionalized there at age 8. The contrast of the dark palette with the photo’s strangeness nods toward a story that’s never fully told.
Bissonnette has made art for many decades, at the GRACE Gallery in Hardwick and in a studio at Burlington’s Howard Center. His sister Sally VerWey was his legal guardian, and he lived with her until her death in August. Ellis said by email that he and a group of Bissonnette’s friends and aides, including Cheng and Wretches & Jabberers filmmaker Gerardine Wurzburg, have created an “unofficial foundation” to help Bissonnette manage his collection, with VerWey’s blessing. In September, they loaded a U-Haul with some 800 or 900 of his works and brought them to the Phoenix, where gallerist Joseph Pensak will store them in a climate-controlled environment and handle sales. Sayler Ruggles, an art student at Vermont State University-Johnson, will photograph and catalog the collection.
At the Q&A in October, Bissonnette was asked about his ease of communication when making art. He pointed out that typing can be “cognitively intensive,” with its dual focus on movement and message. “Painting,” he wrote, “comes intuitively to me.”
“Seeing Eye” by Larry Bissonnette, on view through December 31 at the Hesterly Black in Waterbury. thephoenixvt.com
This article appears in Nov 5-11 2025.
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