Here, Dante embraces transcendence in the form of an acrobat and a spaceship. He is painted with an intentional missing index finger to acknowledge that there can be no pointing to some correct path. It’s up to the viewer to follow their own bliss—as a writer, spiritual traveler, or eternal explorer. The background text of A Brief History of This Very Instant is derived from Marcel Proust’s “Swann’s Way” the first of seven volumes  that constitute Proust’s lifework In Search of Lost Time, but the artist has changed the pronoun from the singular I to the plural We throughout the text. The map fragments come from Eastern Europe, Italy, and the Philippines. Bifidus is partially signed on the right side, just above the town of Davao.

Acrylic on canvas

Size: 48 x 72 x 1½ inches

Price: $9500