Justine Frischmann

Justine Elinor Frischmann (born 16 September 1969) is an English artist and musician. She was the lead singer of the Britpop band Elastica after forming Suede, before retiring from the music industry and pursuing a career as a painter.
Early years.
Frischmann was born on 16 September 1969 in Kensington, London, the daughter of Wilem Frischmann, a Hungarian Holocaust survivor who is the former chairman of the Pell Frischmann company of consulting engineers and a Russian mother. Her parents are both Jewish. She grew up in Twickenham, London, and attended St Paul's Girls School, before studying at the Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London.
Career.
Art.
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...[including] 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.
Television.
In 2003, Frischmann co-presented a series called "Dreamspaces" for the BBC Television about modern architecture. In 2004, she presented the UK's premier and longest-running arts programme "The South Bank Show" and was a judge for the RIBA Stirling Prize for Architecture. In 2004 she narrated a documentary about Adam Ant.
Personal life.
Frischmann previously dated her Suede bandmate Brett Anderson. She then dated Blur lead singer Damon Albarn from 1991 until the couple broke-up in 1998, which served as inspiration for the band's 1999 single "No Distance Left to Run" and "Tender (song)". In the spring of 2000, Frischmann took up competitive fencing.
Frischmann is now married to a climate scientist, Ian Faloona, and lives and works in the USA.