'My whole work is a spiritual journey," explained artist Michèle Souter at the opening this week of Now (Revisited), an exhibition of her work at Hallward Gallery, Dublin.
Each work explores "the stilling of the mind", she said. "That's why you see a lot of images like film and that is why I wanted someone in film to open it."
Film-maker John Boorman, who was just back from South Africa where he was filming , Truth, with Juliette Binoche and Samuel L. Jackson, came to launch Souter's show. The film, which he is now editing in Ardmore Studios, is a love story, he said, based on the book by Afrikaans writer Antjie Krog.
"There's a lot of mystery in it to me," said Boorman, of Souter's work. The paintings with images like film frames "have great strength and they are very easy on the eye and yet hard on the mind in some way".
"Then you have these clearer paintings where you feel Chelly woke up one morning and . . . in her life, it had all cleared away and she saw through to this great clarity, this simple thing," he said. "Looking at the paintings feels like we are in the middle of this extraordinary journey. I find it beautiful, fascinating and intensely mysterious."
Souter's celebrated mother, painter Camille Souter, travelled "from the west" to be attend the opening. Her son, sculptor Tim Morris, was also there.
Fellow artist Patrick Scott, who has known the Souters since the 1950s, chatted to his old friends, along with Sé Merry Doyle, who is directing a documentary, The Golden Boy, about Scott due for screening on RTÉ in the autumn.
• Now (Revisited) runs at the Hallward Gallery, 65 Merrion Square, Dublin, until Thursday, July 17th