I'm Ashley, and I'm living proof that even after the hardest seasons, life can become beautifully bright.

I begin every painting with light.

Before the shadows are added, before the figure fully appears, before the emotion settles into the canvas, I lay the highlights down first — often metallic. Gold, bronze, pearl, silver. I am drawn to the way light changes when it is touched, angled, hidden, or revealed. Then I build the shadows over the light, sometimes with a brush, more often with my fingers. I press the paint by hand, softening edges, deepening emotion, shaping the darkness around the light until the figure begins to emerge.

That is also how I have moved through my life. The light came first. The darkness covered it for a long time. But the light was always there underneath.

This is the story of how I learned to see it again.

Where I Come From

Creativity runs deep in my family. My sister, Stephanie Karno, is one of my greatest inspirations and an incredibly talented artist in her own right, working primarily with acrylic and oil paint. Her work is truly special, and I always encourage people to experience it for themselves.

My grandfather, Louis Karno, was a gifted artist who worked across several mediums. One of my favorite collections of his was a series of realistic pet portraits he created for collectors — including one he made just for me, of my chihuahua, Trè Bug. Art lived on the other side of the family too, through his sister Mollyne Karnofsky and other artists on both sides.

I grew up between New Orleans and the Northshore, and creativity was always around me. But it was Momma Kim, who is like a second mother to me, who truly nurtured my artistic spirit. She encouraged me to paint, to explore, and to trust what came naturally. I took a few art classes in high school. At the time, art was simply something I loved — not yet something I fully understood.

The Long Walk Through Darkness

I learned about survival before I learned much else.

From 2000 to 2002, I was in a relationship with the father of my oldest son. He was controlling and abusive, and I was very young.

From 2002 to 2012, I was married to a controlling husband whose overbearing mother was a constant presence. We had three children together. For ten years I tried to communicate needs that were not being heard, and over time my voice became something I had to keep repeating until I no longer recognized the sound of it. I felt dismissed in my own life, and questioned in my own motherhood.

In the middle of that marriage, in 2005, I lived through Hurricane Katrina. I was seven months pregnant with my daughter and I already had a one-year-old and a two-year-old. A tree came through our house. For nearly a month, we lived without running water or electricity — sleeping in the living room with the doors and windows open, a generator running, a fan moving heat around the room. I bathed in the backyard with a gallon of water poured over my head. My children got impetigo from the conditions. We ate MREs day after day. I did whatever I had to do to keep going.

Katrina taught me what survival feels like in the body. It taught me how quickly life can become unrecognizable, and how much a mother can carry when there is no other option.

In 2011, my body began telling me it was tired. My joints ached. Pain became a constant companion. I searched for answers for years.

In 2012, that marriage ended and I moved to Pensacola, looking for a new life — for safety, for peace, for a chance to rebuild. Instead, I found myself in what would become the most damaging relationship of my life. From 2012 to 2017, I was with the father of my two youngest children, and his brothers were part of the harm too. At first, it did not look like what it was. It rarely does. I did not know how to get out. And if I am being honest, I did not know how to be alone.

Domestic violence is often misunderstood by people who have never experienced it. It is not always one moment. It is not always something you can see from the outside. Sometimes it is emotional, psychological, financial, verbal, physical, spiritual — or all of those things woven together so tightly that you lose track of where the damage started. It can teach you to smile in public while privately carrying fear, confusion, grief, and exhaustion. It can make you feel like your voice is dangerous, your needs are too much, and your truth is something you have to hide.

I know what it feels like to live in that kind of silence.

November 3, 2017

That was the day I got out.

It is also the year I was finally diagnosed with multiple autoimmune diseases — lupus among them — after years of searching. The body had been carrying everything the heart had been forced to hold, and once I was free, it was finally allowed to say so.

I now live with chronic pain, inflammation, muscle spasms, weakness, and days when my hands do not cooperate the way I want them to. There are days I drop things. There are days holding a brush is difficult. There are days my fingers ache, cramp, or spasm. There are days my body reminds me of everything it has carried.

And still, I paint.

That is one of the most important parts of my story. My hands may hurt, but they are also the place where my truth comes through. When I press shadows onto the canvas with my fingers, I am using the very part of my body that has been challenged by illness, pain, and trauma to create something beautiful anyway.

For me, art is not separate from healing. It is healing. It is where pain becomes movement. Where silence becomes form. Where darkness becomes depth. Where survival becomes something visible, something powerful, something that can no longer be hidden.

Kevin

In 2019, Kevin found me. He swept me off my feet. He is my best friend.

On October 18, 2024, I married him.

With Kevin came two bonus daughters, Allison and Madison. Even though they're adults, I love them like they are my own. Together with the six children I brought with me, we are a family of eight — and two parents who didn't know we had been waiting for each other until we found each other.

Some of my greatest joy now comes from the simplest moments. Dancing with my husband in our living room. Being fully present with the people I love most. Watching my children watch me become whole.

I carry an unshakable belief that even in the darkest moments, there is still something good to be found. That belief shapes how I move through the world and how I show up for others.

The Women I Paint

The women I paint are not simply beautiful figures.

They are layered. Emotional. Sensual, strong, mysterious, wounded, powerful, and alive. They carry shadow, but they are not consumed by it. They hold light, even when it is partially hidden.

They represent the woman who has survived something. The woman who had to become quiet for a season. The woman who forgot herself. The woman who is remembering. The woman who is still becoming.

In many ways, every figure I paint is part of me.

She is the version of me who stayed silent. She is the version of me who endured. She is the version of me who was afraid. She is the young mother who bathed in the backyard with a gallon of water. She is the woman who became a mother again and again while trying to survive. She is the body that finally said, enough. She is the hands that hurt and still create. She is the woman who found her way back to herself — one brushstroke, one breath, one painting at a time.

Why I Begin With Light

I begin with the light because I believe the light is never truly gone. It may be buried. It may be covered. It may be hard to see. But it is still there.

Then I add the shadows, because shadows are part of the truth too. I do not believe healing means pretending the darkness never existed. Healing means learning to look at it, touch it, shape it — and understand that it does not get to define the whole image.

That is what my fingers do on the canvas. They soften the darkness. They blend what feels too harsh. They move through the pain. They reveal what is still alive underneath. My fingerprints are often part of the work, even when they are not obvious. My body is present in the piece. My pain is present. My strength is present. My tenderness is present. My defiance is present too.

Because every painting says the same thing in a different language:

I am still here. I was not erased. I was not ruined. I was not reduced to what happened to me. I became something more layered, more luminous, and more honest.

My Mission

Through Ashley Karno Contemporary Art, I want my work to do more than decorate a wall. I want it to create recognition. I want someone to look at one of my paintings and feel seen in a way they did not expect. I want survivors to feel the quiet strength inside the work. I want women to feel beautiful without having to be perfect. I want people who have lived through trauma, illness, grief, motherhood, fear, or silence to be reminded that their story is not over.

This is why giving back matters to me. A portion of proceeds from my work supports organizations connected to safety, healing, advocacy, and protection for those affected by violence and trauma — including FavorHouse and Gulf Coast Kids House, two organizations that supported me and my children when we needed them most.

I know what it means to need somewhere to turn. I know what it means to need someone to believe you. I want children, families, and survivors to know there is somewhere to go.

To Anyone Reading This

If you are going through a hard time right now, I want you to know: this too shall pass. It may not pass quickly, and it may not pass quietly — but it will change. Life can become beautiful again, even if you cannot see it yet. If my story reminds you that hope still exists, then I have already connected with you in the way I always hoped to.

I do not paint darkness because I am lost in it. I paint darkness because I know what it is. I paint light because I know what it means to find it again.

Every piece begins with the highlights first.

That is the truth underneath everything I create.

The light was always there. The darkness never owned it.

And neither did it own me.