Born in Vancouver’s West End, Nicole Steen found she liked art class and stayed up way too late painting and drawing in her room, ultimately missing math class in the morning. Painting with acrylic on paper and cardboard and canvas board, she was heavily influenced by late-night movies and post-punk Brit music. She started going to all-ages punk gigs and dyed her hair when she was an extra in the punk movie Ladies and Gentlemen,The Fabulous Stains. After meeting artist/musicians the Braineaters, she worked as an assistant painting, sanding, and masking before starting a band with her girlfriend Sacha Moisewitsch: Kill Pussycat Kill. In addition to performing, she designed t-shirts and posters, spurred on by Sacha’s mother, artist Carel Moisewitsch’s colourful, anarchistic illustrations of punks and goths.
     Nicole had her first exhibit in a vintage clothing store’s glass display case. In a 3x6x10-foot space, she hung sheets of paper painted with glamour icons such as Marlene Dietrich and Veronica Lake called Paper Dolls. Later, she included paintings on cardboard of comic book heroines and B-movie dames. While working in a movie theatre, she continued to paint movie queens and ad art from cinema. She also served as a production assistant on student horror film projects and a number of rock videos.
     She formed a new band with filmmaker and partner Marcus

Rogers, Stevo Knauff, and Ian Tiles called COAL and did the cover art for a CD release. Nicole also did custom design work and painted clothing under the tag Original Sin. In 1993, she put on a one-woman show at POP! Media/Culture titled Exotic Exit, then music became her primary focus as she played, recorded, wrote songs, and produced three music videos for the band.
     She came back to painting for the SPACE show at the HR Macmillan Planetarium art and music event, then participated in Vancouver’s first LowBrow group show at the Gastown live music venue/gallery, the Brickyard.
     Joining forces with artists Vicki M. and Arlene Kofol, the team became known as the PopTarts. The three focused on showing paintings of strictly female subjects and did so in the Villainess show at the Moonbase Gallery and then Smells Like Female--Women in Music and Love Hurts at the Brickyard. In 2001 the PopTarts (now minus 1) Vicki M. and Nicole opened the Tart Gallery in Vancouver. After a year and half, the Tart Gallery closed its doors but continued as a curatorial force.The PopTarts hosted two all-female group shows in the Fall of 2002 in conjunction with the release of Vicious, Delicious and Ambitious: 20th Century Women Artists by Sherri Cullison, published by Schiffer Books. Future plans include more “Vicious” shows and book signings and a documentary on the PopTarts’ adventures.