Who is Meg Quinlisk

Meg Quinlisk is a professional artist and art instructor living in Chester County. Her family has inspired her to endure despite the challenges of living with Rheumatoid Arthritis, a chronic disease she's had since she was 13 years old. Having to deal with daily pain for 40 years, many surgeries and the loss of many physical abilities left Meg with a feeling of depression and hopelessness. To fight these feelings, Meg taught herself to paint.   She began taking weekly art lessons to feed her passion to create and her desire to express herself through art. Sharing this love of art with others through art classes, paint parties and her professional painting have given Meg's life new purpose and meaning.

For years Meg felt like a prisoner in her arthritic body, constantly held back by the pain. Painting helped her forget this.  It allowed her to view herself as an “abled” person not a “disabled” person.  Arthritis no longer defined who she was and what she could do.  She became defined by her art and her ability to create.  Arthritis may limit the duration of time she can paint but it does not compromise the beauty and joy of what she creates.  If Arthritis is the issue, painting is the solution

Meg’s innovative mosaic paintings are characterized by three major elements — color, texture and animated light. Meg was drawn to mosaics due to the similarity glass shares with her Rheumatoid Arthritis.  Glass is fragile yet beautiful, a concept she embraces about her physical body with all of its limitations. Her arthritis pain at times feels like glass under her skin, yet she has learned to refocus her thoughts on the beautiful life she has created. A mosaic painting like Rheumatoid Arthritis is never static, it is always changing. Her mosaics are animated by the changing light throughout the day.

Her mosaic paintings are created using an exciting range of mosaic glass that generate great depth and vibrancy. Painting predominantly in acrylics and then adding the mosaic glass, she builds it up into an image which is both highly recognizable and uniquely animated.

Meg lives with the uncertainty and pain of arthritis.  She acknowledges that arthritis is a part of her but it does not define her. She is primarily an artist, a mother and an art teacher who happens to have arthritis. Art frees her mind and her body, allowing her to share herself with others.   Her artwork is the essence of who she is.

Her art work has been featured at

  • The West Chester Gallery Walks
  • Chester County Art Association
  • Art Ability Show - international juried art show through Bryn Mawr Rehab

  • Homes and business through out the United States