She never stopped. Not really.
Our friend and W4W member Leigh Kershner has always been an artist. Life just asked her to be a lot of other things first — and she showed up for all of it.
W4W Editorial·April 2026·Member Spotlight
Okay, we have to talk about Leigh. Because if you know her — even a little — you know she's the kind of person who makes you feel like everything is going to be okay. There's a steadiness to her, a warmth, and honestly? A little bit of magic. And it shows up in every single painting she makes.
We've been watching Leigh's star rise lately and we are just so proud of her. Features in Canvas Rebel and Bold Journey, work showing in an international online exhibition, and a gallery show coming up right here in the Southeast — it feels like the world is finally catching up to what we already knew. But to really understand why this moment matters so much, you have to know her story.
She grew up with art in her bones
Leigh grew up in Memphis, the daughter of an architect and an educator. Faith and art weren't just things her family did — they were the air she breathed. She was drawing and creating almost before she could explain why. But then, at 13, she went to Europe and everything clicked into focus. That trip led her back to France for a full year during college, where she got her first real, formal art training. She sat in museums. She studied. She fell completely in love.
Here's a fun detail we love about how Leigh's mind works: when people ask her if she's painting a specific place, the answer is usually no. She paints from her imagination — and what comes out is this gorgeous blend of everywhere she's ever been, filtered through memory and feeling. Every trip, every museum, every cobblestone street is still in there somewhere, working its way onto the panel.
Then life asked a lot of her — and she said yes
After college, Leigh did what a lot of us do: she set aside the dream and got practical. She built a 17-year career in television media sales that eventually brought her to Atlanta. And Atlanta, as it turns out, was exactly where she was supposed to be — because that's where she met her husband.
At 40, she made a choice that a lot of people would second-guess: she walked away from her career to raise a family. Through birth and adoption, they built a family of four kids. There were health challenges layered in too — the kind that require you to be fully present, fully focused, fully there. And she was. Every single day.
“Being present while your children are young is a gift that needs to be savored. I am grateful I was able to do that.”
But here's the thing about Leigh — she never fully put down the brush. Even in the middle of all of it, she kept drawing and painting when she could. Not for a career. Not for recognition. Just because she needed to. It was her outlet, her quiet space, her way of staying connected to herself through one of the most demanding seasons of her life.
2007: the return
In 2007, something shifted. Leigh committed — really committed — to her art practice. She started studying under Chris diDomizio, learning the fundamentals of the French Academy method of drawing. Over the next decade-plus, she continued deepening her craft with Lisa Pressman, Andrea Wedell, and Nicholas Wilton. She discovered cold wax. And a whole new world opened up.
If you haven't seen Leigh's work up close, you really need to. Her paintings are layered — like, physically layered — with paint, wax, sometimes collage. She builds them up and then scrapes back, scratches in, draws on top. The process is almost meditative, but also kind of fierce. The marks you see aren't accidents. They're the whole point.
In 2007, Leigh returned to art in earnest, studying under Chris diDomizio and training in the fundamentals of the French Academy method of drawing. For over a decade, she deepened her practice — continuing her studies with Lisa Pressman, Andrea Wedell, and Nicholas Wilton. She began working with cold wax, layering it into her paintings to create surfaces that are richly textured, dimensional, and almost alive with energy.
“The final result is not beautiful in spite of the marks and scratches, but because of them — just like us.”
We dare you to read that and not feel it in your chest a little.
Her faith is the thread through everything
You can't talk about Leigh's art without talking about her faith. It's not a side note — it's the whole foundation. Every piece she creates starts with prayer, with scripture, with paying attention to the sacred moments that most of us rush right past.
"We go through life at such a fast pace, often not noticing that there are glimpses of God all around us," she says. That's what she's trying to catch — those fleeting, quiet moments of beauty and wisdom that are everywhere if you slow down long enough to notice them. The verse that inspired each painting? Written on the back of the panel. Every single one.
During the pandemic, she painted abstract figures bowing toward the light. She felt like God had stopped the world on purpose — not to punish, but to get our attention. Instead of filling the silence with noise, she sat with it and painted what she heard.
A few years later, as her kids were all flying the nest at the same time — one heading to college, another into her first apartment — she turned to Psalm 23. Still waters. Green pastures. Rest. She started a series. Then she and her husband went to Paris and she stood in front of Monet's enormous water lily panels at the Musée de l'Orangerie. She just... sat there. Took it all in. Came home and finished the series with a whole new energy. That's Leigh.
2023 — the year she couldn't paint
We're going to be honest: this part of her story hit us hard.
In 2023, after a family tragedy, Leigh couldn't paint. The focus was gone. The imagination was gone. The energy — all of it — just gone. She sat with the emptiness, prayed through it, and eventually a verse found her: Matthew 6:26. "Look at the birds of the air... your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?"
She and her husband traveled to Italy, and while she was there she found some beautiful handmade papers she couldn't leave behind. She came home and started making collage and mixed-media paintings of birds. A whole series — born entirely out of grief, faith, and the decision to wait on God's timing instead of forcing her own.
If you ever wonder why Leigh's work feels so alive, so honest — that's why. She doesn't protect herself from hard things. She paints them.
On confidence — she keeps it real
We asked Leigh about confidence and she laughed a little before answering, which we loved. "Do we ever truly arrive at a place of complete confidence and self-assurance?" Honestly, Leigh. That's the question.
She's candid that painting is often solitary and quiet — which means there's plenty of room for self-doubt to sneak in. She's learned to work through it rather than wait for it to pass. She trusts her instincts. She keeps a set of questions she's gathered over years — from mentors, seminars, experience — to help her know when a piece is finished. And she keeps going, even when it's hard, because she knows that's the only way through.
"Confidence grows through the act of doing, even if it's always a work in progress." Somebody put that on a coffee mug immediately.
What she loves most about all of this
You might think it's the exhibitions. Or the press features. Or the finished painting hanging on someone's wall. And she loves all of that — don't get us wrong. But ask Leigh what she finds most rewarding and she'll tell you it's the moment she gets to meet the person who bought her work.
"To connect with someone over an image is a meeting of the minds and souls," she says. "It is a special event and I find true joy in those moments." The art is the bridge. The human connection is the destination.
That's just so Leigh.
Explore Leigh's world at Leigh Kershner Fine Art
Read her featured interviews in Canvas Rebel and Bold Journey, and look for her work at the Kennedy-Douglass Center for the Arts in Florence, AL through June 2026.
