Black Venus symbol inside a pink outlined inverted triangle, tattooed on the side of the ribs in a geometric style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Venus symbol in a pink triangle on the ribs

Geometric · Ribs · Mixed · Photo

A bold black Venus symbol sits centred inside an inverted triangle outlined in pink. The linework is clean and even, and the black and pink ink are both solid with no visible shading. A hand holding grey fabric is visible at the left edge, and the tattoo is framed against bare skin on the side of the torso.

Geometric Ribs Triangle

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

Dear Nell,

Keep reading

The stencil finally held. Mr Okafor at the chandlery cut it for me from a sheet of brass he'd meant for a dinghy fitting, and I scrubbed the back of it with paraffin until the burrs came off. You'll laugh, but I stood on the quay at Harwich with the triangle pressed to the boards of the old lifeboat shed and dabbed red ink through the cut-out until the corners sharpened. It looks like a warning sign now. Bigger than I meant it to be.

The Venus mark I drew myself on the back of a shipping manifest, the way Father used to sketch tide tables. The little circle on top, the cross beneath it, pinned to nothing. Mrs Adair said a mirror and a spear look like a woman dressed for church, which is the sort of thing she says. I didn't tell her the cross is the part I wanted most.

We sail on the Tuesday tide for Rotterdam, four nights in a hold that smells of coffee sacks. I have a pot of black ink, a fine brush, and the stencil wrapped in oilcloth inside my coat. Tell Mam not to fret. Nobody on board reads symbols except the cook, and he only reads the price of bacon.

When we dock I'll go up to the warehouse on the Maas and press the shape into every crate that leaves under my name. Watch for it on the wharves, Nell. It will be the small clean thing in the corner of the page, the one nobody asks about.

Your sister, Ruth