Kuo Juping documents views of his daily surroundings, turning them into precious fragments of memories. He focuses on the composition of wooden boats, which were commonly used as a form of transportation. These works offer a profound link to the past, allowing us to experience the picture of yesterday. One can feel the warmth of the sun through the gleaming reflections on water. There is a possible hint of a romantic encounter between the man and woman on top of the bridge. Kuo Juping (the name was taken after a water plant) was in the pioneering batch of students at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) 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, padi-fields, kampung and make-shift hawker centres. He was a mentor of Tan Choon Ghee (1930-2010) who became a legendary watercolourist. Kuo died of a stroke in March 1966.