This art exhibition is a collaboration between two Artists who developed their artistic passions later in life.

Palangi Gallery is proud to present “Merging Memories”, an excellent exhibition featuring two artists, Cheryl Wetsi and Shirley Steel, a painter and photographer.

Exhibition Curated by Sydney-based artist Farideh Zariv,  “Merging Memories” is a collaborative work by Cheryl Wetsi and Shirley Steel, two artists whose creative journeys demonstrate how evocative images can be brought together through colour and the lens of a camera to explore memory, place, and personal experience. Together, inspired by their journeys and life histories both within and beyond Australia, they navigate the boundaries of memory and time to create visual conversations that engage viewers intellectually and emotionally. Their work reminds us that memories, both distant and recent, act as vital threads connecting individuals to communities, landscapes, and moments in history.

They explore their world via different media. Cheryl Wetsi uses mixed media and acrylic paint, while photographer Shirley Steel expresses her vision through the lens of a camera. They draw inspiration from their distance and recent memories, experiences, travels within Australia and overseas, across the passage of time. They have merged their ideas and themes to provide stimulating and thought-provoking responses to the viewing audience.

The exhibition reminds us of the importance of recalling feelings, emotions, and memories associated with a particular place, time, and people who may have shared those experiences.

The fusion of artistic expression employed in this exhibition by Cheryl and Shirley, prompts spectators to not only visualise the grandeur and beauty of our environment large and small, near and far, but to remember the fragility and tenuousness of our existence and the importance of protecting and caring for it, to preserve memories for the future.

Exhibition Details

Opening Night: 24 July, 6 – 8 PM
Location: 59 Flinders St. Surry Hills

Curator: Farideh Zariv
Guest of Honour: Susan Buchanan

Musical Performances: Eleanor Streatfeild & Daniel Lopez

Artist Talk: Sunday, 27 July | 3 – 5 PM

About the Artist

Immersing myself in photography in retirement I’ve had time and opportunity to develop a style that reflects what I feel when I look through the viewfinder.

I have always been drawn to more abstract artists and I find that my subjects and ideas in photography are influenced by what I enjoy in the broader art world.

I am particularly attracted to the understated, the hidden, the overlooked. Black and white imagery speaks more powerfully to me when I am imagining a concept. Although colour can be addictive, it is when I remove it from my work that I see an idea more clearly.

Living in the World Heritage Blue Mountains, I love spending time in our natural environment, but it is not the big vistas I see, but the smaller, more subtle parts of this world. When I travel it is the snippets of other cultures that I am drawn to and try to bring home through my lens.

Others have said it better than me, but as a photographer, my camera and my printer are like my brushes and paint.

Cheryl Wetsi was born in Sydney Australia and lived in other parts of country NSW during her childhood and early adulthood. This influenced her love of the wide-open expanses of the Australian landscape, seascapes, and later the love of Australian native plants.

Cheryl became besotted with art when she attended an art exhibition when attending a primary school excursion, while living in Moree. Her senses where ignited, she went home and declared to her mother she would become an artist one day.

Her first career was in Fashion Design, and she worked in the clothing industry and then became a Fashion Teacher in NSW TAFE. She met her Ghanian husband in 1986 while teaching at Fashion Technology at TAFE at the university town of Armidale in NSW.

She got the calling and became a focused artist around 2005 when she thought she had better start painting before she got any older! Cheryl is self-taught, although she had a solid understanding of design and painting during her time as a fashion designer and years researching and practicing in her small studio at home, while making countless mistakes! Cheryl sells her art to small local art galleries, local art exhibitions and private commissions.

Cheryl practiced as often as she could to improve her art practice and focused on developing her own art style, at the same time teaching for the Department of Education as a Textiles High School teacher.

Cheryl is an experimental artist, her art is always evolving and enjoys playing with a variety of techniques, tools and mixed - media effects. Her constant experimenting drove her interest from representational art into semi - abstract art. She originally painted with watercolours and oil paints but decided to use acrylic paints as she was able to achieve authenticity, spontaneity, and interesting colour combinations and layering to capture her love of nature and the outdoors.

Cheryl’s focus is to create curiosity, expressive forms, and variety within her compositions, while capturing her audience with vibrancy, energy, and light in her paintings.

Artworks