July 21 through Aug. 25 Gold/Smith Gallery in Boothbay Harbor will be featuring a retrospective exhibit of incredibly large and elaborate colored pencil drawings by Cushing, Maine and Southold, New York artist John Wissemann.

“Japanese Transformations” is a survey of work created by Wissemann from the mid 1990s through 2014. They are inspired by 18th and 19th century small Japanese woodblock prints both classical and the erotic Shunga drawings. From this Wissemann weaves the history of 20th and 21st century art into complex drawings of patterns and illusions.  He takes the art and transforms everything!

It all began with a winter sojourn in Tortola in 1993. Wissemann brought with him only colored pencils and paper and began to realize how versatile the colored pencils could be. One of the Japanese Transformations is in the permanent collection at the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland, Maine which had a one man exhibit for Wissemann in 2001. The drawings are 2’ x 3’ to 3’x 4’, nonstop patterns and stories and narratives within narratives. John Wissemann is a virtuoso of colored pencil and the series, “Japanese Transformations,” is a tour de force of his great talent.

Wissemann is celebrating his 97th year this month. The gallery will hold a virtual reception for John Wissemann at Gold/Smith Gallery Saturday, July 23 from 4 to 6 p.m. via internet. Please come and wish this amazing artist a very Happy Birthday, partake in some refreshments and view, and perhaps purchase, something amazing from this rare exhibition.

The Gold/Smith Gallery is at 8 McKown St., across from the Boothbay Harbor Memorial Library, in Boothbay Harbor. For more information the gallery can be reached at 207-633-6252 or www.goldsmithgallery.net