Lu Hao grew up in a traditional courtyard house south of Beijing. His fondest memories of his youth were pond fish, blooming flowers, chirping birds and the tranquil atmosphere.

With modernization and the changes in the urban structures under the reform process, it's a shocking experience for most Beijing natives, including Lu, to see the demolition of the old cityscape.

Struck by how the city was changing, Lu became increasingly interested in expressing his nostalgia for traditional architecture. This can be seen in his powerful monochromatic paintings of the city's small alleyways. In addition, Lu has produced a series of installations of exquisitely scaled-down architectural models of important cultural and historical sites in Beijing. He titled them "Flower, Bird, Insect, Fish". This lot, the "Flower Vase", is one of the four works in this series.

The artist employed plexiglas, a translucent and fragile medium to construct his miniature architectural models. This work is the Great Hall of the People which symbolizes Beijing's central political power. He has distorted the ideological features of the structure and filled it with animate and organic subjects such as goldfish, crickets and flowers. Perhaps, the artist is trying to comment on the absurd changes with Chinese modernization.