Semioticians analyze symbols, so for this series, we’ve asked 25 of our semio colleagues from around the world to explicate the symbolism of… one of their own tattoos.

When I was first seeing the man I would marry, he looked at me and said, “What colour are your eyes?”

“A kind of dark blue with a weird yellow in the centre.”

“Oh yeah,” he said. “It’s like sunflower and gunmetal. Like your personality.”

Yes! He gets me, I thought.

Turns out he did not get me. At all. I am elated to say that we are now divorced. Still, I am grateful to have kept the moniker and the tattoo that came with it.

I have always resonated with the tension between hard and soft. Sunflower.Gunmetal captured something I recognised immediately in how I like to move through the world. Externally, I like to think I oscillate somewhere between ’90s grunge tomboy and reclining Renaissance maiden. By nature, my way of communicating is playful but pointed, funny but direct. I like beauty with teeth. Warmth with weight. Sunflower.Gunmetal felt like a shorthand for that balance.

But the phrase reaches beyond self-image. It taps into more fundamental oppositions that have always fascinated me: natural and manmade, feminine and masculine, tenderness and resolve. It reminds me of the quote I first read, at 19, in Virginia Woolf’s ‘A Room of One’s Own’ — and proceeded to plaster across my Myspace profile: “A great mind is androgynous.” I was enamored by the idea that strength does not cancel softness, and softness does not undermine strength.

I got the tattoo while I was still living in Hastings with my now-ex. I chose a font inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry of the Battle of Hastings. I love that it is rough, ancient, slightly ritualistic, but also playful… and connects the tattoo to that time and place in my life. I chose the repeating hoop because, to me, the beauty of the tension is not linear or something to be resolved. It exists in perpetuity. The placement on my upper thigh felt equally apt. It is an area that holds so much strength and softness at once. And let’s be honest, it also looks cool and hot! The tattoo was done by an old friend and talented artist, Caleb Kilby, who also did my very first tattoo.

What is interesting is that I did not feel the urge to get the tattoo when the relationship was good. I got it as the relationship was quietly dying. With hindsight, that timing feels significant. Rather than an act of solidifying a bond, the tattoo marked the beginning of letting go.

Sunflower.Gunmetal is not a reminder of a past relationship. It is a record of a moment of feeling seen, and a celebration of playful opposition, light and dark, softness and steel.

TATTOO YOU: Nicola Zengiaro (Italy) on CORAL OF LIFE | Su Luo (Taiwan) on AN ISLAND, A TREE | Thierry Mortier (Sweden) on LIJFSPREUKEN | Cristina Voto (Italy) on JELLYFISH | Charles Leech (Canada) on SURF WAVES | Mariane Cara (Brazil) on BECOMING’S TRIAD | Chris Martin (Canada) on PUNK ROCK HEART | Angie Meltsner (USA) on ENJOY EVERY SANDWICH | Samuel Grange (France) on POLYMORPHOUS | Inka Crosswaite (Germany) on LAYERED FRAGMENT | Al Deakin (England) on FAMILY STAR | Hibato Ben Ahmed (France) on HENNA HAND | Max Matus (Mexico) on KALINGA REDOX | Whitney Dunlap Fowler (USA) on IN THE UNTETHERED | Chirag Mediratta (India) on THE SONG OF THE BUTTERFLY | Alexandra Ncube (England) on LIMINAL ROOTS | Josh Glenn (USA) on FALLING ANGEL | Aarushi Chadha (India) on PART-TIME PEOPLE PERSON | Serdar Paktin (Turkey/UK) on RESISTANCE & SURRENDER | Tatiana Jaramillo (Colombia/Italy) on EMBERÁ BLACKOUT | Antje Weißenborn (Germany) on FADED STAR | Sundari Sheldon (USA) on SUN | Roberta Graham (England) on SUNFLOWER.GUNMETAL.

Also see these global semio series: MAKING SENSE (Q&As) | SEMIOFEST SESSIONS (monthly mini-conferences) | COVID CODES | SEMIO OBJECTS | COLOR CODEX | DECODER (fictional semioticians) | CASE FILE | PHOTO OP | MEDIA DIET | TATTOO YOU (semioticians’ tattoos).