"Landing", the artist's latest series shot in the summer of 2007 introduces us to the rural Greek landscape at night, illuminated by the moon or streetlights. The artist eloquently writes: "Summer '07 in Greece was a hot one. Four heat waves with temperatures around 104°. It had an impact on my work. Just as Greek people emerge as the cool of the night arrives, I too began photographing after sundown. Not only was the temperature more agreeable, I found that places that looked ordinary by day were more mysterious by night. The road to Glisteri, is a motorbike ride down the mountain, round and round through the smashing sunlight in the olive groves and ending at the sea. Lovely. But by night, by streetlight, it is a new place sans tourists where deep shadows hold secrets. Moonlight on Glifoneri Beach at midnight was powerful for its absence of day life. The theatre gone empty."
Accompanying her evening images, are photographs of local farmers, bakers and fisherman, people who make their living with their hands in environments that reflect the straight forward simplicity of their labor. "The atmosphere of their work settings was important to me perhaps because it was so far from the brightly-lit, computer filled offices of the western world. Here was the milk all sudsy, white and beautiful. No cardboard cartons. There were the beautiful loaves of bread held aloft by the baker herself. With pride. No plastic wrap."
Evoking the stark cinema graphic beauty of films like Fellini's "La Strada" (1954) or Antonioni's "L'Avventura" (1960), Beatrice Hamblett succeeds in generating passion for her Mediterranean surroundings using a dedicated palette of black and white.
