Allie Sullberg
Illustration
Writing
Paintings
Ink Drawings
Posters
Flags & Kites
Video
About
2025-
To be human is to forget. I learned this a couple of years ago while listening to an interview with Ramy Youssef, where he mentioned that the arabic word for human (insan) is the root of the arabic word for forgetfulness (nasiyan). I haven’t forgotten this idea since.
But I seem to forget just about everything else. I can stand forget where I placed something or what I did last weekend. I can’t stand the process of constantly forgetting and relearning the same life lessons. As my memory fades, I’ve noticed a growing presence of reminders in my work.
These reminders take the form of symbols or sigils that I can repeatedly draw and meditate on. They are simple which makes them easier to remember. A sigil is a symbolic representation of a goal or desire. I made this sigil to represent the idea of “commitment to craft,” and it’s the symbol that I draw, use as a signature, and reflect on most:
In my art practice, I’ve been creating reminders in the form of flags. Flags are symbolic representations of identities, ideas, things we want to remember, and things we wish to communicate. In uniting individuals under shared identities, flags often come to represent cultural divides. I’m interested in flags that represent emotions and ideas that transcend fixed identities and unite individuals across cultural divides.
Beyond their conceptual meaning, flags are a unique and interesting form. Flags belong outside, for people to see. They built with colors and shapes, composed with great restraint and intention. They come alive with sun and wind. I drew my first flag drawings about a year ago:
Some of these flags are literal, some are silly. The first flag I drew was a flag for blueberries. There’s also a flag for new moss, a flag for taste buds, and a flag for bacteria. Some of them are more about color and shape relationships than they are about ideas.
Many of these flags are emotional, and that’s the type of flag I’m most interested in. I’ve been calling them emotional flags. Emotional flags are symbolic representations of ideas and emotional states I wish to remember.
I drew a ton of emotional flags during my residency at Salmon Creek Farm this summer because I was learning so much and didn’t want to forget any of it. For our final show on the land, I installed about 65 flag sketches around the garden to represent their potential as seeds for growth.
I left them there for a few days, and the snails collaborated:
I also made a wooden flag with interchangeable stripes:
It’s been about a year since I drew those first flags. While 2D and wooden flags were important explorations, I’ve finally realized that these symbolic combinations of shapes and colors come to life best in fabric form, animated by sun and wind: