In an asset catalog you can create folders.
Inside the folders all the image names have to be unique.
If you have an image called myImage and you try to name another image myImage then it will automatically get renamed to myImage-1.
But if you have two folders then you can have images with the same name in different folders.
So, there must be a way to reference these?
Does anyone know how to reference an image by the folder and image name inside the asset catalog?
I spent a ton of time but finally figured this out. Answered here. Copied below.
Select each folder in your asset catalog that you'd like to add a namespace for. Go to the folder attributes and select under the name "Provides Namespace". This should properly set sub-directories for your final asset catalog.
You can do this manually by editing each folder's Contents.json. You would add the following with proper formatting.
"properties" : {
"provides-namespace" : true
}