Murray State University's Department of Art & Design is hosting its annual Holiday Art Auction this week.
The yearly event – which raises money for the department to put toward student scholarships – is set for Friday, Nov. 10, at 6 p.m. in the Clara M. Eagle Gallery on the sixth floor of the Price Doyle Fine Arts building on the MSU campus.
All of the art has been donated by faculty, staff, students and alumni, as well as local and regional artists. Original works of art are available for purchase though both silent and live auction during the event.
Art & Design department chair Rebecca Williams said it’s hard to predict what kind of works will be found at the auction.
“During that live auction, the higher end donations are auctioned off by Brad bones Harris from BBH auctions and this high energy portion of the night is exhilarating and fun. You never know which piece is going to enter a bidding war or which one's going to be the big ticket item of the night,” Williams said. “_n past years, we've raised [as much as] $12,000 for our students.”
This year’s featured artist is John Utgaard, a professor of ceramics at MSU. Williams said his current work focuses on landscapes and people’s relationships with land.
“He's donated a sculpture that's titled Indomitable Landscape,” she said. “He describes it as ‘the land abstracted into a figure inscrutable, defiant and resistant in spite of our damaging interventions on it.’”
Registration for the silent auction begins at 6 p.m. Friday with the live auction following at 7 p.m.
