In a 2015 i-D interview, Australian musician Zheani said she had 18 tattoos and called them “all time stamps and talismans.” Photographs show ink across her forehead, shaved scalp, neck, arms and upper body. She has explained the forehead design; the sources do not give a full account of every mark.
Zheani’s runic forehead tattoo
A close i-D portrait shows a band of angular black runes running across Zheani’s upper forehead, close to the hairline. The same design is visible when her hair is pulled back.
Zheani said she placed the rune pattern to counterbalance her as she followed her chosen path, describing its message as a “consonance of balance.” That is the meaning she gave the forehead tattoo; the smaller marks elsewhere have no comparable explanation in the cited interview.
Tattoo marks along the shaved side of her head
Small black symbols sit in the shaved section beside Zheani’s purple hair. They extend the ink from the forehead toward the temple, but the available photos do not make each mark legible.
The side tattoos are partly hidden when longer hair falls forward and become easier to see when it is pulled back. i-D identifies the forehead pattern as runic but does not assign a separate meaning to each temple mark.
Neck and upper-body tattoo details
Photographs also show dark linework below Zheani’s jaw and across the upper chest and arms. Clothing, jewellery and pose partly cover the work, so these images are clearest about placement.
The neck lines curve around the throat and collar, unlike the horizontal band across the forehead. The two areas give the visible work different directions.
A small upper-arm tattoo appears in one portrait, but it is not clear enough to identify. Together, the photos show marks on her face, scalp, neck and arms without presenting a complete inventory.
Lettering and black linework on the arms
In a white-tank photograph, dark lettering is printed on the shirt; the tattoos are separate marks along both arms. The arm work appears in sections rather than as one continuous sleeve.
Some arm designs are small or partly covered. Zheani’s description of her collection as personal time stamps and talismans does not provide a symbol-by-symbol key.
Visible symbols in close portraits
A close portrait shows a small mark near the hairline beside the larger forehead tattoo. Her rings and hand are also visible, but the ink remains distinct on the skin.
Another portrait, with purple hair and heavy jewellery, shows tattoos around the side of the head, neck and upper shoulder or chest. The image records their placement, not their individual meanings.
Why Zheani describes the collection as talismans
Zheani told i-D that all 18 tattoos were “time stamps and talismans.” Those are her own terms for the collection and the clearest general explanation in the sources used here.
She also described body decoration as something primal. Her specific explanation for the forehead runes was balance; the remaining photographs show where other marks sit but do not establish what each one means.
Zheani’s collection in photographs
The close forehead image shows the runic band; wider portraits reveal the shaved-side marks, neck lines and additional arm and upper-body tattoos. No single photograph shows all of them.
Zheani gave a count of 18 and explained the forehead tattoo, but the cited sources do not inventory every design. The smaller symbols are best described by their visible placement rather than assigned names or meanings.