Juping portrays an impressionistic depiction of traditional food stalls painted in light, soothing colours. The soft hues of green tones of the trees and the groups of people sitting together infuse the scene with a laidback and serene atmosphere. These food stalls and its delicacies provide a connection to the collective memories of the past. 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.