PAINTINGS and prints by some of the UK's finest contemporary artists are about go on show in two major exhibitions in North Yorkshire.

Opening tomorrow in Ripon Cathedral is The Great North Art Show comprising more than 300 works, including photography and sculpture, by about 50 artists.

Next weekend, The Original Print Show opens at the Zillah Bell Gallery, in Thirsk, offering a chance to see new work from this year's Royal Academy Summer Show by nearly 80 leading and emerging UK artists.

The Great North Art Show, which runs until September 20, will feature guest artists sculptor Harold Gosney and London artist Everton Wright, who makes large-scale drawings in the sand and asks the public to walk the lines.

For his multimedia installation, Walking Drawings: Heavy Horses, Wright used an old tractor, a Cumbrian riding school and 15 shire horses which went out in gale force winds to bring his drawings to life.

Other artists at Ripon are Barbara Sykes, winner of the Sir Hugh Casson Prize for Best Drawing at the 2014 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Laney Birkhead, a landscape painter and printmaker, who was awarded the Harrowells Print prize at the 2014 Great North Art Show; North Yorkshire artist Neil McBride, who paints crowds of people in landscapes; and Vesna Milinkovic, who has had paintings exhibited and sold at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and who recently featured in Saatchi Online curated collections.

Prints range from the detailed etchings of Janis Goodman and collagraphs by Suzie Mackenzie to dreamy cyanotypes by Alun Kirby and graphic landscape scenes by Sarah Harris.

Viewing at the cathedral is from 10am until 4.30pm. Visit greatnorthartshow.co.uk for details.

The Original Print Show at the Zillah Bell Gallery runs from September 5 until October 31 with prints by some of the most celebrated names from the art world including Barbara Rae, Michael Craig Martin and Fred Cuming.

Works were selected by the Yorkshire born artist Norman Ackroyd, one of the principal curators of this year’s Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.

His choice includes every genre of printmaking from etchings, engravings, lithographs and screenprints to digital prints, guaranteeing a colourful and wide range of work by celebrated artists and lesser known printmakers.

“It is the second year I have been asked to curate this show,” said Mr Ackroyd. “I thoroughly enjoy bringing the diversity and energy of contemporary printmaking up to my home county, and particularly to Zillah Bell where I have been exhibiting for over 20 years.”

Leading artists include British painter and printmaker Barbara Rae, a member of the Royal Scottish Academy and the Royal Academy of Arts; Ian Davenport, former Turner Prize nominee, English abstract painter and one of the generation of Young British Artists, and Richard Woods, whose works are held in major collections including the Saatchi Collection, Arts Council England and the British Museum.

For more details visit zillahbellgallery.co.uk.