Lines of beauty...

Annie Morgan Suganami's paintings, on show in Cardiff this month, capture the beauty and wisdom of age, writes Jenny White

- Jenny White

THE wisdom of age shines through the lined faces of the women in Annie Morgan Suganami's paintings, which are currently on show at Gallery TEN in Cardiff.

These portraits of women are composites composed from the faces of women she has photographed, faces drawn from family, faces from memory, and found images - including, for this new collection, a selection of vintage photographs of elderly eastern European women.

The women in these photographs particularly caught her attention due to the confidence and experience that emanated from their faces and posture.

"They're in their 70s and 80s, and I was fascinated by their hands and the way they stood," she says. "I've done one portrait of an older woman, parts of which I borrowed from a 1910 picture. She had lovely old feet, ankles and hands, and there's something about the posture of these women that signifies that they take no nonsense: they are wise and gentle."

Her resulting portraits evoke the past, but are not tied to a specific time and place: she has found that her own features, and those of her father, also appear in the work.