Nala.

Her first complete tattoo was a geometric fern on a forearm. Three hours without a break, the needle dotting the skin as if it were counting — because she counts every dot, even though she says she doesn't — and her mentor watching from across the studio without stepping in once. A full year as an apprentice, waiting before she was allowed to touch a client's skin: "if you can't wait, you can't tattoo," and she could. The portrait doesn't tell any of that; it only shows her face looking forward, with the silver hoops in her large ears. The rest goes separately.

Nala is one of the Animal Kinhood characters, my series of animals with clothes and a trade of their own: in her case, an aardwolf who does dotwork tattoos in a studio in Maboneng, Johannesburg. Framed, it has just the right presence: when someone walks into the room, it's the first thing they look at. It works well in an entryway or a hallway you pass through, without competing with whatever's around it. If you like how this aardwolf anchors a wall instead of just decorating it, the whole series — also available framed — is in the collection.