Meet Angela Simeone

Nashville abstract painter.

Angela Simeone working in her Nashville studio

In the studio, Nashville.

“Ever evolving is an amazing place to be… which creating requires. And painting large scale provides a physicality that I love.”

I'm a contemporary abstract painter, and I've worked out of my Nashville studio for more than twenty years. I came to abstraction after early training in portraiture, printmaking, and illustration and a three-year apprenticeship with Nashville painter David Guidera — though the abstract work is something I taught myself. I paint in oil and mixed media on canvas — color, gesture, and mark-making built into large-scale work meant to hold a wall and a room.

My process begins with a palette and very little plan. I work in layers — inks, acrylics, oils, charcoal, glazes — letting each decision change the next, so a painting lands somewhere I couldn't have drawn up in advance. That room for chance is the part I trust most. What I'm after is presence: work that pulls you into the present and gives the eye somewhere real to rest.

A large part of my practice is made in partnership — with interior designers, architects, and art consultants specifying for residential and commercial interiors, and with collectors who commission a painting for one particular wall. My work hangs in private homes, mountain retreats, hotels, restaurants, and clinics, and in the collections of professional athletes, U.S. senators, country musicians, designers, and collectors across the country.

My paintings have been featured in Architectural Digest, Luxe, Forbes, Domino, and House Beautiful, and I've licensed a bespoke fabric line for West Elm in partnership with Minted.

Artist statement

I'm a maker to my core. I paint because physical work made by hand pulls a person into the present moment — a rest from the digital, and something I think we're built to need.

The physicality is the part I love. I start from a color story, then build the painting in layers — oil thinned with medium, charcoal, palette knife, fingertip — scraping back and reworking until the surface settles. The hues I plan for arrive as fluid, secondary things, and fear, anticipation, and elation are all wrapped up in the making. Surprises come with every piece; I never plan for what occurs, and not knowing is the primary draw.

When I'm in the flow, it all falls together — layer, texture, atmosphere — into a finished moment. A solid, finished full-stop is a feeling hard to beat. What I want is for the work to do that for you, too: to stop you, and hold you there.

Selected placements & projects

Hospitality & commercial

Conrad Nashville — 33 original paintings across the penthouse suites, the gallery and public areas, and both dining rooms, Blue Aster (three) and Thistle & Rye (seven). Interiors by Champalimaud Design; most-placed artist on the property.
Peabody Union, Nashville — most-placed artist in the development's public spaces.
Grand Hyatt Nashville — one installation.
Blackberry Mountain — Relais & Châteaux resort.
Etch Restaurant, Nashville — six commissioned paintings.
Jasper's Restaurant, Nashville — two installations.
Sarah Cannon Cancer Center, Franklin, TN — three commissioned paintings.
Sarah Cannon Cancer Center, Frist Clinic, Nashville — five commissioned paintings across three public-space areas.

Special projects & press

ABC's “Nashville” — seven commissioned paintings.
MTV Cribs — Brian & Brittany Kelley episode.
Swan Ball — featured artist.
Atlanta Magazine — Buckhead Atlanta Showhouse.

Private collections

Private collections in mountain homes and residences nationwide.
Thompson Research — private collection.