DO you fancy spending £22,000 on York Races? This, however, is not an invitation from another grand Yorkshire house looking to make a quick buck on Royal Ascot at York, but the chance to buy a painting of the racecourse by Braaq, alias the late Harrogate artist Brian Shields.

Painted in the year he died, the 1997 oil painting York Races depicts the packed stands on race day and features several Braaq trademarks: stooped figures in the style of Lowry; a wall jutting at a humorously impossible angle; and a striped top in the crowd (a ubiquitous Braaq detail said to be in memory of his late sister).

This is one of two Braaq pieces newly on show at the Blake Gallery, in Blake Street, York, the second being a lovely scene of Walking To Evensong as the sun descends, priced at a less prohibitive £1,900.

Royal Watercolour Society artist Caroline Bailey's Harbour Scene and Sunflowers And Tulips are pleasingly soft on the eye; by contrast Dutch artist Christian Nesvadba's Poppy Explosion does exactly what it says on the label with its blue, yellow and purple flower heads in glistening oil.

David Lyon's Men Dancing is all linear grace in charcoal; Zhou Jun's Eastern work The Bird Opera sings with life, pink and perky; Timothy Morrison's monoprints of Clapham Junction bustle with neon-lit London nightlife; David Fisher's chameleon tendency spans nude life studies in tactile red, a huge portrait of the Grand Canal in Venice in the burnished style of Turner and everyday coastal Scottish scenes.

The dappled sunlight in John Mackie's oils has you wishing you too were walking on his Sunny Boulevard in Provence, while Alexander Slatter's textures in his coastal scenes convey the erosive power of the sea.

Trisha Hardwick, Graeme Willson, Sue Atkinson, Jonathan Hood, Walter Holmes, Giuliana Lazzerini, Linda Wormald and Judith Levin contribute too. The exhibition runs until March 12 and all work is for sale.

Updated: 16:10 Thursday, February 24, 2005