An exhibition of acrylic paintings by area artist Rose Marie Cunniffe will be on display at Swarthmore Borough Hall, 121 Park Avenue, Swarthmore, from April 3 to May 4, 2015. The public is invited to the artist’s reception on Friday April 10 from 6 to 8 pm.  The reception and the exhibit are both free and open to the public.

The exhibit is entitled “Enchanted Places” and presents the paintings of Ms. Cunniffe, who has been called “a secret Delaware County treasure.”  A largely self-taught artist whose nature-based abstractions are built slowly, layer by layer. Ms. Cunniffe lives in Holmes and was born, raised and educated in Philadelphia.  She says, “I paint until a shape or color strikes a chord, and then the work begins. Eventually the painting tells a story and the canvas itself has a history.” Personal memories also play a role in her work. “In the process I strive for grace, a restrained sense of humor and the lyrical feeling that satisfies my sensibilities.”

Despite Ms. Cunniffe saying that she came to art later in life than most, her work has been included in more than 200 solo, group and juried exhibitions, including venues as varied as the Philadelphia Art Alliance; Delaware Center for Contemporary Art, Wilmington; Widener University; West Chester University; Penn State University, Malvern and Media campuses; Art of the State, Harrisburg; U.S. Artists American Fine Art Show (with Dolan/Maxwell Gallery); Philadelphia Sketch Club; Main Line Art Center, Haverford; and  the Wallingford Community Arts Center, where she is a member of the Exhibition Committee and has been active in curating and installing shows for more than 30 years. Her most distant exhibition was in Ireland, where she received two fellowships to live and paint at the Ballinglen Arts Foundation in County Mayo.

Ms. Cunniffe’s work has also been selected for many individual and corporate collections, including QVC, The Scullin Group, Philadelphia Arts and Business Council, the Community Arts Center in Wallingford, PA, Astra-Zeneca and The Ballinglen Archive.

 The artist hopes that her work inspires people to find meaning in her paintings and hopes to encourage “thinking and feeling and looking, and especially finding.”  Examples of her work can be found on her website, rmcunniffe.com.