Artist Anne Marie Zanfagna stands by an exhibit of her paintings at the New Hampshire State Library in Concord last year. The top left portrait shows Zanfagna’s daughter, Jacqueline, who died of an overdose in 2014. Since then, Zanfagna has painted more than 80 similar portraits of others who have died during New Hampshire’s opioid epidemic, and her work is now on display in Washington, D.C.
Artist Anne Marie Zanfagna stands by an exhibit of her paintings at the New Hampshire State Library in Concord last year. The top left portrait shows Zanfagna’s daughter, Jacqueline, who died of an overdose in 2014. Since then, Zanfagna has painted more than 80 similar portraits of others who have died during New Hampshire’s opioid epidemic, and her work is now on display in Washington, D.C. Credit: AP file

A New Hampshire woman’s vibrant portraits of young people who died of drug overdoses amid the opioid crisis are on display in Washington, D.C.

Artist Anne Marie Zanfagna of Plaistow didn’t paint for more than six months after her daughter, Jacqueline, died from an overdose in 2014. But wanting to remember her daughter’s beauty and vibrancy, she experimented with a posterized style featuring bright pinks and purples contrasting with stark black and white.

She brought the painting to a grief support group and other families asked if she could paint a portrait for them. The requests really poured in after NPR featured her story in 2015. She started a nonprofit organization called Angels of Addiction to raise money for scholarships and addiction recovery resources, and published a book combining her portraits with poetry.

Starting on Monday, more than 100 of her portraits will be on display in the rotunda of the Senate Russell Building in Washington D.C., for five days at the invitation of Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen. Zanfagna says she hopes lawmakers will see what addiction is doing to the next generation.

According to an Associated Press story last year, Dartmouth College researchers reported that the state’s disproportionately high rate of opioid overdoses happened in large part because of prescription practices.

The study also found underfunding, scarce treatment options and the state’s proximity to the drug supply chain were big problems, leading to a 1,600 percent increase in death from opioid use, mainly fentanyl, during a five-year period starting in 2010.

In 2015, the rate of fatalities from opioid use stood at 24 deaths per 100,000 residents, the highest rate in the nation and double what it was the previous year.

A heartbreaking element to Zanfagna’s collection includes Christopher Honor, who died in September of 2015 at the age of 22, less than a year after his girlfriend’s fatal overdose.