Indigenous art’s Vivid visions

More than 20 of Coda Ridley’s artworks will be beamed onto the Barangaroo’s harbourside Wulugul Walk as a part of Vivid.

Model Samantha Harris, artist Coda Ridley and Sydney Swans star Lance ‘Buddy’ Franklin promoting Vivid 2022. Picture: Richard Dobson

Eighteen-year-old Coda Ridley lights up at the prospect of having her art featured at Vivid 2022, which is due to make its return after two years of pandemic hibernation.

More than 20 of her artworks will be beamed on to the harbourside Wulugul Walk at Barangaroo. It will be part of a larger exhibition, named The Gallery, the product of collaboration between Crown Sydney, Vivid, the Blacktown City Council, and Carriageworks. The installation will be a 160m walk-through experience featuring 90 artworks from Indigenous students in Sydney, in what organisers say will be one of the largest Indigenous light art displays ever produced.

Ms Ridley highlights one of the artworks she’s produced for the exhibition, a painting of a pink sunset foregrounded by trees.

She says it was a scene in the backyard at her parent’s home in Blacktown that inspired the painting.

“I was like – woah, this is a painting moment.

“It’s a sense of home. And nature.”

She imbues the work with ideas from First Nations art styles, with sweeping circles and patterns. Now in her first year at the National Art School in Darlinghurst, she says she was “looking for the space between the stars”.

Thomas Fienberg, her entertainment teacher in high school, says Ms Ridley is humble, loyal, and “wants to give back to the people who’ve supported her”.

“She wants to give back and I think art is a platform for her to do that,” Dr Fienberg said.

This side of her comes alive when she talks about the projects that capture her imagination.

The next one? A picture book that she wants to illustrate with stories from her First Nations mob, the Goreng Goreng people, located near Bundaberg, Queensland.

Ms Ridley appeared on Wednesday with Crown ambassadors – AFL star Lance “Buddy” Franklin and model Samantha Harris – at an event to celebrate Indigenous art.

Crown Sydney chief executive Simon McGrath says the collaboration is a “wonderful platform for society and change”.

Vivid Sydney will be held between May 27 and June 18.