Born in Austin, Texas, in 1974, Andrew Moon Bain grew up in Seattle. He moved to Providence in 1993, where he has become active in the city’s arts community. Bain received a Bachelor in Fine Arts degree in sculpture at the Rhode Island School of Design.
Bain is a visual artist, painter, printmaker, musician, record producer and songwriter.
“I add a songwriter, so that’s the one I want you to use,” he jokes.
Here is a conversation with the artist, who says his work has been inspired by the natural world.
The full interview can be found here.
Natalie Cohen, the director at Central Contemporary Arts in Providence, said that the organization she founded in 2021 wants to make public accessible to the public. One way is through the billboards Bain has created.
“Bain’s work explores the ideas of the environment and living in a community and questioning identity and connectivity in a very broad sense,” Cohen says. “He allows people to come to their own conclusions about what those mean to them.”
Bain enjoys producing art, but he says there is more to his work than just a pleasing view.
“Sometimes I feel like delivering work that’s beautiful and palatable, but if you look closer, there’s a deeper message that is agitating and connecting and representing culture where it may not have been represented before, you know,” he says.
Bain says his art has a deep Caribbean influence.
“I’ve been very blessed to travel and been curious about other cultures, and I just naturally gravitated to the Caribbean when I was young,” he says. “Those experiences, those people, those colors, all bleed into the visual artwork I’m creating.”
Music was also influential. Bain and Corrin Haskell founded Lustre Kings Productions in 1996. The company’s first single, “Jah All the While” by Mr. T, came out later that year.
“When I was younger, I got bit by, you know, kind of inspiration with music and went from classical music into guitar and into hip-hop and started writing rhymes,” Bain says. “And then that evolved into songwriting that led into me producing records, not just for myself but for other people.
“And I had a good mate that I grew up with who had gone to Jamaica to teach school. He came back with a 45 vinyl that he produced when he was there.”
The record label recorded “a whole stable” of artists, releasing 7-inch records worldwide.
Bain estimates that he has created more than 100 album art covers.
He calls his billboard art meaningful, and Cohen says that Bain has a way of communicating with the community through his works, that can be seen by motorists. It is a nice respite from advertising that typically dominates billboards.
“He has a really great way of connecting his individual works in exhibition and also in speaking to people directly through his artwork,” Cohen says. “One piece that he has shown on Broad Street that says ‘Love Thy Neighbor,’ and so what does it mean to love your neighbor in terms of occupying, I guess, space in a community and occupying that with art rather than with advertisements?”
“I tried to keep some of that messaging as simple as, can you see that we’re all made of carbon, interconnectivity?” Bain says. “Things like that.
“You hope that you’re doing something in a positive way for the passerby or for somebody in community transit or riding their bike or even walking or playing. It’s like a chance to share oversell.”
Cohen hopes that Bain’s billboard art will spark conversations between residents in Providence.
“I hope that people are more reflective about what they see in their neighborhoods and I really hope that it connects different parts of Providence,” she says. “And though it’s very different that everything can come together to form this one whole, you know, this one art or this one exhibition, you know, the city itself.”
