“If I can evoke any emotion from the viewer—whether it’s happiness, nostalgia, or spiritual reflection—I’ve succeeded.” ~Albert Dreher

Painter Albert Dreher began his artistic career in the advertising industry. But this Colorado native’s fascination for sacred power places of the American Indian led him to transform his career from his world as an advertising designer to that of a fine artist.

“As time passed, I had a vision and a growing need to translate that vision through the contemporary arts,” Dreher says. “The only way I knew to truly accept and communicate the integrity of my ideas was through a new medium.”

Dreher quickly became known as a pioneer in oil wash techniques and artist on the leading edge of contemporary painting.

Everything in a Dreher painting flows; space, color, time, art and reality. The circular sun/moon symbol seen in nearly all the Dreher’s pieces is a constant symbol of hope arising out of despair—the light dawning behind darkness.

Dreher’s favorite subjects are the power places of the prehistoric Anasazi Indians, especially the ancient kivas and cliff dwellings he finds hidden in the sacred mountains and mesas of the Southwest.

To create his images, Dreher journeys alone to these “places of the soul” to sketch and paint the areas where sacred rituals took place.

“The Ancient Ones enjoyed a rich religious life and made no distinction between reality and fantasy,” the artist says. “In fact, their underground kivas contained a covered hole in the floor, opposite the fire, which symbolically represented the entrance to the Underworld. They believed that people originally climbed from the Underworld onto the surface of our present world.”

Other popular subjects highlighted in Dreher’s work include the American Indian woman, traditional adobes, and Midwest farmlands.

Are you interested in purchasing Albert Dreher’s work? Please contact Rogoway Turquoise Tortoise Gallery for more information.