ABBOT Hall Art Gallery is back in the national spotlight proving once again its grand standing as one of the UK's most important regional galleries.

The elegant, award-winning Kendal art house, under the Lakeland Arts umbrella, is the first stop on a national tour for the George Shaw: My Back to Nature exhibition, following its presentation at London's National Gallery.

Running until March 11, work in My Back to Nature has been inspired by various mythological woodland landscapes by luminaries such as the highly influential Venetian 16th Century artist, Titian, and Poussin, one of the leading painters of the classical French Baroque style. George is interested in how their stories – often featuring violence, illicit sex and drunkenness – have parallels in the way that people might behave in the woods today, when they think they're unobserved. This is complemented by his interest in Christian imagery, especially how landscape artists of the past often alluded to the Crucifixion in their depiction of trees.

In 2014, George Shaw was invited by the National Gallery to become the ninth Rootstein Hopkins Associate Artist, a scheme that enables leading contemporary artists to work with the National Gallery Collection, demonstrating the continuing inspiration of the Old Master tradition.

As part of the scheme, the artist is given a studio for two years, to produce work that in some way connects to the National Gallery Collection.

Three works from the National Gallery’s own collection are also on display under the Georgian roof of Abbot Hall, selected by George to tie in with his show at the Kendal gallery. Each work apparently inspired his creative output during his National Gallery residency.

George's affinity with the world renowned gallery at London's Trafalgar Square began in the 1980s, as a teenager, regularly taking a sketchbook with him to draw from the paintings he found the most captivating.

During a recent interview at the National Gallery, George said when he was offered the chance to be the associate artist he could not believe his luck. He added: "I first thought how excited I would have been as a teenager to have been given the chance - and how I probably would have wasted it anyway. I still have my Thames and Hudson book on the National Gallery (345 illustrations 75 in colour) that my mum gave me for a birthday present in the early eighties.

"As a painter you cannot escape the bullying hands and eyes of the great painters. Titian is not a teacher in the way that other painters can be but a mirror in which your own cowardice, hesitation and embarrassment are reflected back. You can’t learn anything from him and yet I always feel I’m on the edge of knowing just a little more. The Death of Actaeon has hypnotised me since I was a teenager."

Born in 1966, George studied at Sheffield Polytechnic and Royal College of Art, London. His previous exhibitions have included What I did this Summer (2003–2004) Woodsman (2009) and most recently Neither My Arse Nor My Elbow (2013) at Dublin's Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin.

In 2011, he was shortlisted for the Turner Prize, for his paintings of suburban landscapes set around his childhood home of Coventry. These were all painted in Humbrol enamel paint, a medium that he still uses, rather than the traditional oil.

A 15-minute film about George Shaw and the making of his new paintings is shown continuously in the projection room at the end of the exhibition.