This large-scale, three-panel painting by Miya Ando is made from reclaimed redwood and silver nitrate. It represents the culmination of a long-running series in which Ando has been experimenting with a traditional Japanese fireproofing technique called shou sugi ban which requires burning the surface of wood to protect the inner layers from future damage. “I char the wood because it dematerializes the object,” she says. “The silver nitrate creates a mirror. It becomes like water. A reflection is there and not there; it is material and immaterial.” This piece borrows its name from a Japanese word of particular importance to Buddhism, which, as is implied by the title of the work, holds multiple meanings. Of particular interest to Ando is the meaning of Kuu as a term for emptiness as one of the five elements—Godai (五大, lit. "five – great, large, physical, form") are the five elements in Japanese Buddhist thought of earth (chi), water (sui), fire (ka), wind (fu), and void (ku). This piece debuted in Ando's 2022 solo exhibition Kumoji (Cloud Path / A Road Traversed By Birds And The Moon) at Kavi Gupta gallery in Chicago. The works in that show are expressive of the transitory and immaterial quality of nature’s impermanence and interdependence.