THERE are fairies at the bottom of John Street in Stroud as an exhibition of fantasy art is on show at Touche.

Ralph Boyer's A World of Difference runs at the gallery until Saturday, September 25. It features the paintings of former Fleet Street ad man Ralph Boyer, who has gone from selling dreams to painting them.

Citing the Pre-Raphaelites as his primary influence Mr Boyer told the SNJ he had always enjoyed painting and when he had retired he had moved to Stroud to pursue his art full time.

His interest in the little folk and other figures of fantasy follows on from the Victorian revival when free-spirited fairies became popular with the famously repressed society.

"In Victorian times they were very held back and severe and the artists got away with all these tempting fairies," he said.

"I'm painting these things for different reasons but I suppose that is what inspired me." The exhibition coincides with Touche Contemporary Art's third anniversary and the walls are adorned with fey folk, unicorns, Arthurian knights and other characters from myth and legend.

Mr Boyer said he took his inspiration form the scenes he saw around him and just painted whatever came to mind.

"Sometimes I don't know how a painting is going to look until I finish it," he said. "Other times I have more of a fixed idea.

"One time, for example, I was walking along the canal and saw a chestnut tree heavy with leaf and deep shadows below. I started imagining the scene with a dragon and pixies beneath the tree and thought I would use it in a painting."

He said his love of fantasy art was partly to do with escapism.

"I do it because I enjoy it and I would paint these things even if nobody else was ever going to see them," he said.

"But I suppose there is an element of getting away from all the terrible things that are going on in today's world and if I help other people do that, great."