COLUMBUS, OH.- Columbus Museum of Art presents Greater Columbus: The 2017 Greater Columbus Arts Council Visual Arts Exhibition, on view July 14 through November 26, 2017. Highlighting the outstanding talent and ability of Columbus artists, the exhibition includes work by the recipients of the 2016 Visual Arts Fellowship Awards including Sue Cavanaugh, Paige Früchtnicht, Dani Leventhal, and Melissa Vogley Woods. For Greater Columbus, Paige Früchtnicht shows work with Greg Ponchak under the collective name OGH, and Dani Leventhal presents collaborative work with Sheilah Wilson.

Chosen by jury, these artists represent a diverse range of practices fostered within Columbus’s artistic community. Each with their own voice, they demonstrate the strength and vibrancy of the region’s artistic ecology. Works in the exhibition span a wide range of media including video, painting, installation, and fiber. For the first time, this exhibition is being presented in the Margaret M. Walter Wing. With ambitious works that hang from the ceiling, spread across walls, and emerge within self-contained structures, the artists have made this expansive gallery space a considered part of their work.

Greater Columbus is a partnership between the Greater Columbus Arts Council (Arts Council) and the Columbus Museum of Art (CMA). The Arts Council and CMA encourage and support cultural development in the Columbus area.

Sue Cavanaugh’s fellowship was supported by Annie’s Fund. Annie’s Fund, created in memory of surgeon, artist, and arts patron Anne Miller, honors an artist specializing in the hand-crafted arts - those with little or no formal training and without regard to the mainstream art world’s recognition or marketplace. This special award celebrates Miller’s commitment to this art form’s visionary quality and the recipient’s work is meant to embody this bold concept.

The Arts Council’s Visual Arts Fellowships program, established in 1986, recognizes outstanding Franklin County artists. Since the inception of the program, more than 170 artists have received awards in a variety of disciplines, including visual arts, crafts, film and video, creative writing, music composition and choreography/movement arts. The Arts Council’s program is one of the few local fellowship programs in the country. Sue Cavanaugh’s award is supported by Annie’s Fund, which recognizes outstanding artists working with the media and techniques associated with craft arts.

Jurors for the 2016 Individual Artist Fellowship Awards were Cybele Maylone, executive director of UrbanGlass, Brooklyn; artist and independent curator Anne Thompson; and Reto Thüring, curator of contemporary art at the Cleveland Museum of Art.