Since 1974, German artist Peter Dreher has painted the same water glass more than 4,800 times. You’d think he would be bored by now, but no. With a mix of precision German engineering and a Zen-like discipline, Dreher continues painting the same glass over and over and has no plans to stop, and it is what he is perhaps most famous for. On May 7, Quint Gallery, 7739 Drury Lane, opened a show of Dreher’s paintings and drawings. The exhibit, which consists of a series of 24 of Dreher’s water glasses, 12 vitrines (a European bowl) and 12 newly-rendered flower drawings, some made right here in La Jolla, will continue until June 5. Dreher’s works, finished in a single sitting, are simple, realistic monochromatic renderings in the still-life tradition in warm gray on a white background on linen or paper with a few specks of color added in. They are like a visual representation of a Zen koan — a pithy, enigmatic statement so difficult to decipher or comprehend with the rational mind that contemplation takes you beyond mind to a place of pure awareness. Dreher’s paintings and drawings, which reject any hint of gaudy materialism, appear to be much too similar to hold interest when seen from afar. Yet they challenge or entice you to come closer and look deeper at the reflections in the glass without the usual preconceptions or assumptions. They ask you to look with freshness and newness in the Zen tradition of “beginner’s mind.” In Zen, the idea or goal is to see and do the same thing, the normal thing, the everyday thing, as if for the first time. When you are totally present to “chop wood and carry water,” you see that things are constantly different, constantly new and constantly changing — and what you have taken for reality is an illusion. More importantly, what you have seen as the mundane is actually the gateway to the mysterious. Dreher calls his collection of glass paintings”Tag Um Tag Guter Tag,” literally meaning “Day by Day A Good Day.” It is sometimes translated as “Every day is a good day.” But it may also mean doing the same thing every day can be a good thing when done with the right state of consciousness. The title comes from a koan by Chinese Zen master Yumen Wenyai (864-949), associated with the Blue Cliff Records School of Chan Buddhism, who was known for his abhorrence of writing things down and his one word responses. “I try to paint a glass in total restraint of any personal involvement and without a flicker of emotion,” Dreher said of his glass paintings. “Each glass is a new glass. No one glass is exactly like the one before.” Dreher, a balding, bespectacled man with a characteristic stoic frown, was born in 1932 in Mannheim, Germany. He grew up during the Nazi era. His father was an officer in the German army and was killed on the Russian Front. After his father’s death, his family lost its home and he was homeless for a time. Dreher eventually built a new house but realized that home isn’t a physical place but is in the heart. He eventually found his home, as well as his escape and refuge from life, in painting. From 1968 to 1997, Dreher was a professor of painting at State Academie Karlsrube in Wittnau, Germany. He retired in 1997 and now lives in Freiburg on the edge of the Black Forest. He has been to the La Jolla area at least twice to exhibit and work, and he likes it here. Sara Trujillo, the office manager at the Quint Gallery, who was educated at Sotheby’s Art Institute through the University of Manchester in England, gives us a clue as to Dreher’s character. “He is a quiet, older gentleman. Very sweet and very deep, almost mystical,” she said. “But as soon as he starts talking about painting he become instantly passionate.” This exhibit is well worth visiting because it shows the work of an important artist in the serial tradition. It is also an opportunity to see how Zen has influenced the arts and to explore how you see and if you can unravel a visual koan — as you are drawn from disinterest afar to clear seeing close up.