THIS exhibition is a tour de force of drawing and painting techniques.

Best known for his vibrant oil pastels of racehorses, bursting with speed, power and muscle, Trowell highlights other aspects of his work in this show, the most important being a magnificent landscape of silver birches on heathland, one of four large landscapes painted using a very thin layer of almost dry oil paint with delicate pastel detailing on top.

Spare lines and broad brushstrokes convey the haunting atmosphere of the sparse vegetation and the ragged clouds in the blustery sky.

In a group of smaller landscapes, Trowell changes to thick impasto oils and creates a completely different feel and scale of painting, notably a view across the Vale of York towards the Hambleton Hills with a small smear of white paint catching the essence of the distant White Horse to perfection.

A couple of large pastels of racehorses show his delicate draftsmanship, his use of the texture of the board and his knowledge of the anatomy of the horse, as do the flurry of lines of an extremely effective line-drawing on a newspaper’s racing page.

For his greyhound studies, he chooses sanguine chalk, posing his subjects at rest and, in yet another mood, his watercolours catch characters at the races and a pair of steeplechasers in full flight.

Another of his passions is music, and the show includes oils of an orchestral concert.

Among pairs of musicians is a beautifully observed study of two cellists. His own virtuoso piece is a view of the orchestra bathed in light in a modern auditorium.

The study of drawing is rather out of vogue in art schools at present, but Trowell, who won a scholarship to the Royal Academy Schools where he won a slew of medals before moving to the Royal College of Art, proves what a pleasure it is to see superb draftsmanship.

AN