Ellie
Participatory Portrait
She was
lazy
After having her little boy, Ellie was struggling with postpartum depression and trying to find herself again while returning to work. Instead of being met with care, she was increasingly described as lazy, miserable and difficult.
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Ellie was struggling with postpartum depression when she returned to work while her son was still a baby.
One night, her partner woke to their child before she did and called her a “lazy fucking bitch.” The comment became part of a wider pattern of criticism. Ellie was told she was lazy, a slob, miserable and always in a mood. Later she was called manipulative, a joke and an awful person.
Ellie describes reaching a point where she no longer recognised herself. She felt she had become “just a mum” and that the brighter, more playful parts of her had disappeared.
She eventually left the relationship and began rebuilding a life that included more than motherhood alone. Ellie teaches Makaton because she believes everyone deserves to be heard. She trains, runs, reads, cooks and bakes, and has made herself a promise not to lose herself again.
THE DESTRUCTION
Vitriol
About the Work
2026
Acrylic on canvas
The altered portrait is covered with frantic black lines concentrated around Ellie’s face and eyes, reflecting the exhaustion, lack of sleep and blurred sense of identity she described after becoming a parent.
Across that chaos, I painted the words “LAZY FUCKING BITCH” — the phrase that stayed with her from a night when she was struggling and needed care, not judgement.