Kamille Simone has long viewed abstraction as a form of decolonization for Black visual artists, prompting a deeper exploration of hard-edge painting in 2019. This period produced Triangle Painting, which challenges the traditional rectangular canvas through a triangular surface, flag-inspired queer colors, and a grid that functions as both an autobiographical and mystical motif. Drawing Table, a disassembled table gifted by a queer mentor, marked a departure from an illustration-based practice.

Simone’s work has since increasingly drawn from time spent outdoors, exploring themes of play, grounding, and the experience of navigating familiar and unfamiliar trails. Through painting and installation, Simone employs transcendental symbols—including hourglasses, the sun, eight-pointed stars, and landscape-inspired palettes—to evoke nature’s divinity and its capacity to mitigate marginalization. These motifs are examined through an ongoing consideration of their spiritual significance, as well as their potential for harm and appropriation. Ultimately, Simone seeks ways for Black American queer artists to represent their spiritual and lived experiences beyond the visibly centered Black body.

50 for 50 is an artist opportunity that invites 50 community artists to showcase their work at Touchstone throughout 2026, the year of Touchstone’s 50th anniversary.

Kamille Simone is a painter and writer based in the Washington, D.C. metro area. Her relationship to spirituality and ontological frameworks is represented with symbols and materials from metaphysical ephemera, transcendental painting, and Black American assemblage. She is an Arts Adjunct Professor and Administrator at George Washington University’s Corcoran School of the Arts and Design.

She received a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University and an MFA from George Washington University’s Corcoran School of the Arts and Design. She was a 2022 Torpedo Factory Art Center Post-Grad Resident Artist.