OK, I'll share what I've had for a bit in the interest of getting to solve this. I just hope fellow puzzle enthusiast strangers on the internet can acknowledge the contributions of others.
I'm pretty positive it's a DNA/RNA encoding to amino acids (protein building blocks) in some fashion.

- The game of life/life/love topic is relevant.
- The WR portal with the QR code from an earlier stage featured a colored blob. It definitely looks like a volume filled protein structure. Not sure which one.
- DNA/RNA has 4 symbols ('atcg' or 'aucg'), is read three units (called bases) at a time, and there are 21 proteins (indicated by one letter abbreviations).
- The three drips on the chess piece could indicate a reading frame, which tells you how to chunk the bases. A different start point will lead to different amino acids, so this is important.
- DNA/RNA has stop codons, which indicate when to stop making a protein. These can either be delimiters between words, or be considered by their pigment based names (amber, ochre, opal).

Consider only the 4 color combinations of the flames (RB RG YB YG) and treat them as bases (atcg).
Consider the permutations of the bases, reading order of the strips, and reading direction.
Consider reading frames (just in case).

Just looking at the inner colored flames, many combinations will produce keys within the range of a minikey (~29 or 30, with/without omitting stops).
Combining the inner and outer colored flames, all combinations are within range of a privkey, as has been noted (50, without omitting stops).

The question is if this is a key:
What start, order, and direction (and maybe frame, if it changes per strip), and if capitalization is also encoded somehow.

Stuff to rule out:
If DNA/RNA, there is an amino acid that indicates when to start, but I've tried those keys.
I've read according to the spirals, and combos of CCW & CW, as well as many other combos.
Some combinations and starts do indeed encode BIP38 beginnings, but I haven't gotten anywhere fruitful.
Using the ribbons as capitalization doesn't work.
Inner triplets are not consistently one height, if flame height encodes capitalization.
I don't see a pattern in the outer flames that would indicate how to capitalize the inner flames.

If it's not a key:
Translating it could also produce a phrase which points to the next step, and there are legible words (and maybe phrases) in the most likely permutation and frame, but not all of them are. There is one word which relates directly to the painting when unscrambled. Substitution, rearrangement as an anagram, caesar, and vigenère don't go anywhere as a whole that I can see.