Voices that Inspire

What inspires you from WFSU Public Media? Here's this week's Voices That Inspire. My name is Matthew Forrest. I work under the student in Brightso, the RIT ESO. I'm an artist and I mostly paint canvases and murals. I should have known much earlier, but it basically took working in graphic design for about 13 years and wanting to have more creative freedom than what graphic design really allows. I had about a six month period from when I left my graphic design job until I started at FSU. And so I just started making a ton of these FSU football illustrations, which got me a little bit of interest in people paying attention to me on Twitter and Instagram. And then I was able to kind of transition that into a more broad art career. Essentially, when I started doing the murals, that's when things really kind of started blowing up because they're basically billboards to a certain extent. It's after the first one I realized just like, you know, how powerful of a platform it is. Ultimately, my work is all about me trying to be the best version of myself because the work brings that to me. Just about every profession asks you to come into work and be somebody that you're not. But art is the only career that absolutely demands you to be yourself. I always felt like I needed to fit into a certain role. And this allows me to kind of ebb and flow and grow and accept that there's parts of me that aren't great that I need to work on. And you know, accept that there's things that have happened in my life that are tricky to deal with. But for me, making art and being an artist is my way out of that. My name is Matthew Forrest, aka Brightso. If you want to keep up with my work and what I'm doing in the future and what I've done in the past, check out my social media, search for Brightso on pretty much in the platform and you'll find me. You're listening to Voices That Inspire.