Founded in 1988, NAEMI emerges while Juan Martin, the Executive Director, worked providing counselling to mentally disabled persons at a community mental health center in Miami. After encouraging a client to paint as a way to escape his intense suffering, Martin remembers how he liked that art work and realized at that moment that there were probably many other talented persons in psychiatric hospitals waiting to be discovered.

This first artist that Martin discovered never again picked up a paint brush, erroneously deciding that he was not an artist. Yet, his extraordinary work remains a testimony of his error. These artists have a great need to express what is going on in their world regardless of the latest fashion trend in the mesmerizing world of contemporary art.

In the past 30 years, NAEMI has been a pioneer of this field of outsider art by developing various projects, conferences, workshops and activities with experts in the visual arts, literary and mental health professions. NAEMI exhibitions have been annually shown in South Florida and have circulated in various museums and art galleries throughout the United States, from New York to Washington D.C; In European Union in Spain and in Belgium. In Latin America in Cuba, Chile,Argentina, Peru, Mexico, Bolivia, Paraguay and Guatemala.

NAEMI has considered it very important to facilitate the publication of  bilingual books and catalogs to educate and bring awareness, not only with the artists whose work is displayed in the collection, but also with the idea and existence of this specific type of art.  The publications have been written by experts in the field of mental health and outsider art and serve as a source of information for the public.