Finding our Reflection Points

When you're rebuilding your life in a new country, working solo, having let go of the anchors from your life before. Your workplace, your colleagues, your family, your friends.

Without these people to reflect you back to yourself — your work, your choices, your evolving identity — you feel like you’re floating between these new versions of yourself, waiting for one to stick. You're creating multiple identities in parallel; professional, social, kiwi, french… unsure which parts still feel like the new you.

The three of us bonded over this exact feeling. That first Friday wine, we realised we'd each been navigating this alone. We needed reflection points — people who could help us see clearly which version we were becoming. We found them in each other.

While researching for the Juste Les Filles brand identity, I stumbled across this painting by Irina Pecherina, a Moscow-based painter. It perfectly articulated the feeling we had been describing: the floating, the fragmentation, the waiting.

So I reached out to see if this evaluation hit home for Irina too.

Her story felt like ours. And we have a feeling it might feel like yours too.

Here’s our conversation

JLF: We found your artwork on Pinterest and it really resonated, I would love to ask you about it? I am a freelancer from New Zealand, in my second year living in Paris. Navigating the isolation of remote work, solo work, searching for my identity here both personally and professionally.

[At JLF] we share many of the same battles of being in a foreign city, only fixating on our work, struggling to fill in the gaps with friendship and finding community. We have come to the realisation that as we build our new identities – without points of reflection (in our friends and colleagues), we float between these new versions of ourselves, waiting and hoping for one to stick.
Your artwork has perfectly articulated this feeling, I would love to know more about your philosophy for the work, or if you have experienced the same?

IRINA: I’m delighted to meet you, and it’s truly valuable to read feedback from people.

You have a very subtle understanding and have captured my vision in the painting. I am an empathetic person, observing people and have seen many different destinies. However different we may be, I see shared experiences.

So, you have perceived everything very accurately for yourself.