Black tribal wings framing a central cross tattoo across a woman's bare back, photographed from behind against a dark background.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Tribal wings and cross on a back

Blackwork · Back · Black and grey · Photo

The photograph shows a bare back viewed from behind, with a large black tribal design of stylised wings spreading from the shoulders. A detailed cross sits at the centre of the design, with bold solid lines and sweeping spikes forming the wings. The dark background makes the black ink stand out against the warm skin tones, and the framing centres the tattoo on the back.

Blackwork Back Wing Cross Tribal Angel wing Back

Find an artist for this

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

The wings were the first thing Dad painted every April, before the Waltzer went up and before the generator was fuelled. He had a tin of black gloss and a brush worn to a point, and he would stand on the ladder behind the ghost train, sweeping the spikes out from a cross he'd marked with chalk and a length of string.

Keep reading

Mum said it was the wrong sort of angel for a fairground. Angels were for churches, she said, and this one looked like it had come off a fishing boat. Dad just grinned and said the pattern was tribal, that his grandfather had cut shapes like it into cartwheel hubs in Lincolnshire. I never knew whether he was joking. He never once told me the same story twice.

The summer I turned fourteen the left wing cracked down the middle in a storm at Skegness, the cross lost its lower arm to a loose board, and Dad lay in the back of the van with a fever that wouldn't break. So I took the tin up the ladder myself. My hands shook for the first hour. By dusk I had the upper spikes done and the cross stood crooked but whole.

When the sun went down the lamps came on behind me, and the painted wings threw a black shadow up the side of the cannon booth, long and feathered. Dad got up off his cot to look. He said nothing for a long while, then tapped the tin with his foot and told me the left wing was lazier than the right, which was how I knew he was getting better.