Nicki Rose
Participatory Portrait
She was
the problem
Nicki Rose survived repeated harm, loss and addiction — and still found herself blamed for what happened to her.
Nicki Rose was sexually abused by her father from the age of eight. When she eventually spoke up, she was called a liar and spiteful. After leaving home, foster care brought more labels: volatile, out of control, useless, unworthy and a liability.
Later came harmful relationships, sexual violence and people telling her she had probably wanted what happened to her. During years of addiction she became “a mess” who supposedly could not look after her child. She eventually stopped using cocaine and has now been clean for ten years.
Nicki has also survived extraordinary physical illness, including toxic shock syndrome after having her first child. Through everything, one sentence from her story stood out: “I’ve been through enough, I could be a horrible person, but I actively choose not to be.”
She creates art, visits exhibitions, walks in nature, volunteers and deliberately looks for ways to put joy back into the world.
THE DESTRUCTION
The Weight of It
About the Work
2026
Acrylic on canvas
I surrounded Nicki with the different judgements attached to her across completely separate periods of her life: liar, volatile, unworthy, a mess, slut and others.
Across all of them I painted “YOU DESERVED IT,” the words from her story that felt like the ugliest conclusion beneath so much of that blame. The piece reflects how repeatedly being harmed can still somehow be turned into evidence that the woman herself is the problem.