Monk Enveloped In Golden Flames At The Heart Of A Mandala

A kaleidoscopic mandala of karmic debt: at its center, a monk self-immolates in golden flames while peripheral rings reveal past incarnations as a opium-den pianist, a cholera-ridden dockworker, a Renaissance forger of religious icons—each layered in translucent strokes of raw umber and French ultramarine that bleed into the grotesque cherubs of a collapsing Rococo ballroom, Signac’s technique making the very plaster seem to pulse with regret.