Whereas most parents who brag about their 4-year-old’s paintings will end up showing you a rather unappealing piece of art, filled with stick figures and coloring outside the lines, the parents of Iris Halmshaw will deliver. The 4-year-old’s paintings are reminiscent of Monet’s Water Lilies, with soft colors that complement each other — unbefitting of girl her age, and one with autism at that.

But the art soothes her, her parents say. She becomes irritated when surrounded by other kids, doesn’t speak too often, and carries a pink plastic spoon in her left hand wherever she goes. Her mother, Arabella Carter-Johnson, told the Daily Mail that after setting up a makeshift playschool at their home in the UK, they accidentally discovered that Iris liked to paint.

“One day I drew some stick men and Iris found them really funny,” she told the Daily Mail last year. “My mom bought an easel and we got the paint out. Iris made one brush stroke and the paint dribbled down to the bottom of the page. She was furious and burst into tears. But I figured out the problem: It wasn’t the paint, it was the fact that she couldn’t control it.” So, after putting a sheet of paper on a table, Iris began to paint. “Straightaway she filled the whole page,” Arabella-Johnson said. “She seemed to know intuitively what to do.”

For years, art therapy has been a go-to tool helping children with autism to individualize themselves, become more social, and facilitate sensory integration — many children with autism experience sensory overload. For Iris, it has helped keep her happy and calm. Her paintings, which can take between a few hours and a few weeks to complete, have even been sold to buyers for as much as 1,500 pounds ($2,435).

To see Iris in action, you can watch the video below.

Iris - A Portrait of an Artist from Rupert Ward-Lewis on Vimeo.