Black tribal tattoo in a Polynesian-style pattern covering a man's chest, shoulder and upper arm, with a sunburst motif and bands of chevrons and triangles.

Polynesian-style chest piece and arm sleeve

Blackwork · Chest · Black and grey · Photo

A bare-chested torso and arm are covered in a large black tribal tattoo, with a sunburst-like motif on the chest and a band of chevrons and triangles running down the upper arm. The bold solid black fills and clean linework create strong contrast against the skin, with a small reddish mark visible on the chest. The image is a close, angled shot with the head cropped out and a dark background that keeps focus on the tattoo.

Blackwork Chest Shoulder Upper arm Ribs Sunburst Chevron Triangle Tribal pattern Sleeve Chest piece Swirl Band Geometric pattern

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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

By the time the shift whistle goes at Hollin Pit, you have already copied the sun from your grandfather's forearm onto the back of your school jotter, nine times, each one a little straighter than the last. He never talks about the ship that gave it to him. He only lets you trace it with a wet finger while the kettle goes cold on the range, and he says the rays are there to keep the dark off the chest, which is what a man says when he means something else.

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The owners want the lamp-room cleared by Friday, and the men are talking about walking out. Your mam tells you to stop drawing on the table. You stop, but the chevrons keep running on in your head, the rows of points like the cage rails, the triangles like the spoil heaps you see from the bus, all those sharp little things that point one way and never back.

On Thursday night the deputy comes down the row with word that the seam under Crook Bank is taking water and his cousin is somewhere under it. You go up the slope with the old stick and a candle in a jam jar. Nobody asks you to be useful. You stand at the mouth of the drift and hold the light up the way the sun does, every ray pointing outwards, and the men come up one by one, and you count them against the flame until the number is right.

Your grandfather dies in March with his sleeve still rolled. At the funeral you see that the pattern runs on past his wrist, under the cuff, where nobody has ever been allowed to look. That night you take the jotter to the table and draw the hidden part from memory, row after row of triangles. When you count the points on the finished page there are nineteen, and you understand that the last one was never meant for him.