Artist’s Reception – William Rhodes: Fear Not

William Rhodes: Fear Not September 17 – October 31, 2026 Artist’s Reception: Saturday, September 26th from 1-4 pm All are welcome! Please join us for the Artist’s Reception for William Rhodes’ solo exhibition, Fear Not, in conjunction with the reception for concurrent exhibition, Ellen Bepp: The Ghosts We Carry. Greet the artists, check out the exhibitions and enjoy the light refreshments and lively conversations. Look for the “ART” Building at 770 West Grand Ave and come upstairs to Transmission Gallery for this event. Free street parking on West Grand Ave and in the neighborhood south of West Grand. More about Fear Not: William Rhodes’s sculptures on view incorporate objects that have been used, inherited, discarded, or found with elements he has carved himself. Trained early on as a furniture maker, he combines hand carved figures, flames and snakes with objects collected from a family home, photographs, hardware, tools, and other remnants of everyday life. Neon words signal from some pieces. The resulting works resemble shrines or memorials, but they remain grounded in the ordinary. Religious symbols appear alongside household objects. A photograph might be surrounded by carved waves, tools, hardware, animals, or religious symbols. A suitcase can become an architectural space. A toilet becomes the base of an unexpected monument. Things with little apparent value are carefully incorporated into elaborate constructions, their histories becoming part of the work. ​ Rhodes is equally interested in people; family, mentors, and leaders, as well as those who have been overlooked or treated as disposable, recognizing and elevating their presence in his work. By giving attention to these lives, enshrining and revering them, he considers how value is assigned and who gets remembered. The title Fear Not appears in the work as both a phrase and a kind of instruction. It can be read in relation to the religious imagery that runs throughout the sculptures, but it also takes on a morepersonal meaning. To look closely at lives and objects that are easily dismissed is, in its own way, an act of resistance to that dismissal.