Attic Gallery: Explore the Works of Earl Hamilton in New Exhibition Room

Attic Gallery, which is located in historic Downtown Camas, is currently featuring the enticing works of artist Earl Hamilton. The gallery, which recently opened a new Exhibition Room, also has a brand-new frame shop where you can custom order frames to meet your artistic needs.

Earl Hamilton, now in his sixties, spent most of his childhood living in a small cabin in the Rodgers Mountain area outside the town of Scio (Oregon) in the Willamette valley, with his parents Satsuko and George Hamilton, both successful artists. The family lived self-sufficiently on their secluded homestead, painting together in their cabin’s living room. Thus, from an early age, Earl was influenced to enter the art world. Living a frugal lifestyle, hauling water, milking goats, collecting eggs from their chickens and minus TV and radio, he was encouraged to read and talk a lot about art. Earl learned self-sufficiency and a desire to follow his own artistic instincts. He now lives in Lebanon, another small Oregon town, where he works on his paintings every day and usually most of the night. 

Earl studied art in high school where he won a Scholastic Gold Key award for the State of Oregon and a National Gold Medal Scholastic Award for a competition in New York City. He won an art scholarship while studying art at Oregon State University. In 1980, Earl won The Grumbacker Award for the Northwest Watercolor Society, and 1981 the First Place Sweepstake Award for the Watercolor Society of Oregon. 

Earl’s paintings are filled with a kind of whimsical lightness reflected in many images such as castles, clowns, children, animals and lovers. He layers acrylics and uses collage materials in many of his abstract works. Earl’s paintings whether abstract or whimsical objects, could be called meditative, mystical, contemplative, energetic, bold and confident in brushstroke.

“I knew that I would always be an artist,” said Hamilton. ”Art has become a way of life for me, of perceiving and being. You take art with you whether you paint or not. It’s in your eyes and in your hands.”

To learn more, visit www.AtticGallery.com

The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday from 11 am to 5 pm.