Nowadays, make-believe is as prevalent in politics and everyday life as in art. The current expansion of theater into politics and the blurring of fiction and reality can be viewed as a deceptive mechanism of the nation-state. I use flags in my paintings like the politician/magician’s prop, intended to mesmerize crowds lured by their mythical charm. The compositional arrangement of flags in my works obscures their reading. Disarrayed, stretched, floating, or hiding other objects, they exist in a fictional space whose logic is unclear to the viewer. Whether an aid for a spellcaster or part of an idiosyncratic visual layout, the flag symbols on the flags become unintelligible, which ridicules their status as venerated objects.