The pandemic and lockdown have given Justin Lim the time for introspection. This led him to the realization that no one really has full control over their life as everything is constantly in flux. In A daydream a day, Lim presents a series of paintings featuring chairs being placed in different environments with common objects. To him, each chair has a different personality, each telling different stories. The chair becomes a signifier of class, identity, and hierarchies. It is also seen as a source of comfort from everyday life and can tell stories of the struggle of respite.

In this series, Lim places them in uniformity despite their physical differences and the differences that they represent in terms of stature and ‘class’, reflecting current society. The environments depicted in this body of works are painted in and composed from various photographs. They do not exist in reality as they are collaged and spliced together, creating a sense of ambiguity – an unreliable documentation.

The feeling of ambiguity gives Lim the space to ponder, helping him to arrive at some state of resolution and to make sense of his place in the modern world. In a world that is always on the move, we keep forgetting at times to detach ourselves from the hustle and bustle of everyday life and to just sit down, contemplate, and dream a little.