Kuo Juping's compositions reflect his continued interest in depicting his surrounding environment, reinterpreting scenes of village landscapes onto a pictorial space. His work is characterised by a build-up of solid strokes evenly applied across the canvas, projecting an earthy, rustic sensibility. Juping's impression of old streets, dwellings, and natural landscapes mark him as one of the important pioneer artists of Malaya. Kuo Juping (the name was taken after a water plant) was in the pioneering batch of students at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in Singapore but had to return a year before graduating to tend to his father's import-export business, Sing Guan Thye & Co. He was a founding member of Thursday Art Group and Penang Chinese Art Club in 1936. He was one of the first artists to paint ordinary people and places such as rubber estates, oil palms, cocoa plantations, paddy fields, kampung and make-shift hawker centres. He was a mentor of Tan Choon Ghee (1930-2010) who became a legendary watercolourist.