Back of a woman's neck and upper back showing a large black ornamental mandala tattoo in a V shape, placed across the nape and between the shoulder blades.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Black ornamental mandala across upper back and nape

Blackwork · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A woman with her hair tied up is photographed from behind, showing a large V-shaped tattoo across the nape of the neck and upper back. The design is built from symmetrical mandala-style motifs, including a central medallion, floral sprigs, scalloped borders and repeated bands of fine lines. The work is entirely in black ink, with solid fills and stippled dots along the edges, set against plain pale skin and a light background.

Blackwork Dotwork Back Neck Mandala Ornament Floral Paisley Pattern Medallion

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Win, the big top came down at Sowerby on Tuesday, and I have been sitting on the wagon steps since with the scissors in my lap, not able to put them away. You will say I should have written sooner. I know. Mr Pike sold the last of the canvas to a scrap man from Halifax, but he kept back the ringmaster's mantle, the black silk one I spent three winters on, because he said nobody in the company could carry it but him.

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It was a V of silk with a medallion at the point and scalloped borders that dipped and rose like the edge of a lace collar. I worked each floral sprig by lamplight in the caravan while the generator coughed outside, and when the thread ran thin I unpicked old shawls from the costume trunk and copied their paisleys onto the cloth with a stub of chalk. Your grandmother's shawl gave the centre its shape, the little leaves curling in towards a dot like a held breath. Nobody ever looked at the inside of a costume, but I wanted the outside to hold something true.

On the last night the ring was less than half full, and a girl from the village sat on the front bench in a borrowed coat and stared at the cape the whole evening. Afterwards she came round the back of the tent, shy as anything, and asked if she could touch the stitching. I let her. She ran her thumb along the border and said it looked like frost on a window, and I found I had nothing to say back.

I have cut the medallion free, Win, all three inches of it, and sewn it into the lining of your good coat. It will sit between your shoulder blades when you walk to the bus stop in the mornings. Don't go wearing it out in the rain, though. It took me a long time to get it right.