Trained in Western painting at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Christine Mak's watercolour of local shophouses is an earlier work that is different from the Chinese brush and abstract paintings she is known for. The theme of vanishing scenes was popular with artists painting landscapes in the 1990s. In this piece, Mak has chosen a little fruit stall nestled by a traditional barber shop. The painting is possibly done on site, with focus given to the impressionistic effects of sunlight on the building's textured surfaces and the makeshift canvas covers of the fruit shop. Feeling is also put into the local flavour and colour of the scene, with much less regard for accurate draughting of the buildings and people.
Mak went on to develop her work in Chinese brush and has become better known for her rural scenes and literati paintings of the Lingnan school.