Justine Elinor Frischmann is an English artist and musician. She was the lead singer of the Britpop band Elastica, before retiring from the music industry and pursuing a career as a painter.
She has exhibited internationally and is currently represented by the George Lawson Gallery in San Francisco, California. Frischmann has said, "The themes and ideas I am working with are in direct relation to an ongoing personal narrative; the big questions are reflected in the choices I make in my art... my ever-evolving relationship with my spiritual faith. I think my approach and aesthetics reveal internal struggles and speak to my family origins and history." In 2005, Frischmann moved to Boulder, Colorado, where she studied visual arts at Naropa University, a small, Buddhist-inspired liberal arts college. In 2012 her work was shortlisted for the UK's Marmite Prize for painting, and she has been included in 1000 Living Painters.
Music
Frischmann began writing and studying music at the age of eleven. She was a founding member of the band Suede with Brett Anderson, whom she met at UCL in 1988. She left the band in October 1991. In the 2018 documentary "The Insatiable Ones", Anderson cites her as huge influence on the band's first album. Frischmann later founded and fronted her own band, Elastica. Their first album, Elastica, released in 1995, became the fastest selling debut album in UK history. They were signed to Deceptive Records in the UK, and later with Geffen Records in Europe and the US. In 1994, Elastica was voted Best New Band by NME readers at the Brat awards. In 1995, Elastica was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize for their album Elastica. The album went on to sell over a million copies worldwide. In 2001 the band announced an amicable breakup, citing, in part, burnout from a grueling touring schedule. Frischmann spent the next few years developing artist M.I.A. whom she discovered. M.I.A. was Frischmann's friend and flatmate. Frischmann co-wrote and produced M.I.A.'s demos for her first album, Arular, most notably its 2003 single "Galang". Frischmann left London in 2005 to enroll in a masters program at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, and "become a nobody". In a 2016 interview regarding her art career, Frischmann stated, "I don't really have any desire to make music, to be honest." In 2017, Rough Trade Records released a remastered version of Elastica's first eponymously titled album. That year, there were rumours that Elastica had been asked to perform at M.I.A.'s Meltdown at the Southbank. In 2019, Rough Trade released a limited edition Elastica BBC sessions album on UK Record Store Day.
Frischmann previously dated her Suede bandmate Brett Anderson. She then dated Blur lead singer Damon Albarn from 1991 until their break-up in 1998, which served as inspiration for the band's 1999 single "Tender". Frischmann is now married to a climate scientist, Ian Faloona, and lives and works in the USA.
