The fabulous cloudscapes that Kubota designed for his Symphony of Light panorama bring to mind some of the great European artists such as Jacob van Ruisdael, John Constable, and Joseph Mallord William Turner. Kubota had studied western as well as Japanese art, and the dramatic cloudscapes and atmospheric landscapes of these artists may well have served as an influence as he worked on this series. Just as those earlier artists were superb at depicting gradations of light and shadow in their paintings, Kubota’s ability to capture the elusive quality of light in color, thread and cloth is one of the major features of his work, as is made evident here in the spectacular play of elements in Ai/ Obliteration.