A PAIR of feline eyes follows you round the room at Romsey Art Group’s Autumn Exhibition which opens this Saturday (October 3).

New exhibitor Cheryl Day’s pastel work Just Jasper seems to jump out of the wall of the Mountbatten Gallery at Lee. She also has two almost impressive works, Simply Sienna (another cat study) and Follow the Pack showing a group of wild dogs.

Animals are always popular subjects for RAG members and Ruth Roberts' oil entitled simple Zebra is a striking and stripey work. Another eye-catcher is Elizabeth Fraser’s Stay Close Son depicting an adult and baby rhino.

Cows are obviously easier subjects to find than African big game and there are several bovine beauties on show. Jenny Morgan’s Jersey munches grass in prime position above the altar in this converted chapel and Sue Cole Clarke’s Ears Looking at You Too and Girl Power should bring a smile to the face of the viewer.

If you are more interested in Cowes with an ‘E’ there a several works depicting sailing in this exhibition. Trevor Pike’s Mariquita is a sharp and precise rendering of yacht in full sail while by Diedre Springthorpe’s All Lit Up is a rough-textured more impressionistic study of racing craft with spinnakers billowing.

Calmer waters are shown in Barry Fry’s delicate study of Longstock Water Garden – this work, in acrylic, is all the more impressive when you find out that the artist never brushes but uses pieces of card and other oddments to apply the paint.

Another impressive floral work is Dutch Jewels, a watercolours by Daphne Elleman, a former RAG chairman who now lives on the Isle of Wight.

As an experiment at this exhibitiion the pictures have been hung as far as possible, in alphabetical order, going clockwise around the gallery. This means it is easier to match up the picture with the artist’s name in the catalogue but doesn’t always make for the most pleasing mix of images on the packed walls.

The exhibition, which features more than 450 works, runs at the Mountbatten Gallery until October 17 from 10am to 5pm daily. Admission is £1.