BLOK Abstract - remember where you read it first.

The title is the irresistible expression and artistic personality developed by one of the region's burgeoning creative talents, David Almond.

Embraced within that edgy, contemporary term is his signature Pop Abstract style, which could be the next big thing in art.

Like two other rising stars from the Cumbrian art world, Daniel Cooper and Stefan Orlowski, David has the hefty support of Signature Gallery owner Peter Blaskett, who has a discerning eye for emerging talent and has given David a four-week exhibition slot.

"It's genuine, original work and needed to be seen," claims Peter. "And you won't have seen anything else like this."

Running at Peter's Kendal gallery on Kirkland until September 5, Play features 15 acrylic on board abstracts.

Sweeping, vastly expressive brush strokes provide the platform for the precisely placed Blok Abstract building blocks.

The result is stunning, a terrific combination of colour and clever precision.

To be frank, for me his abstract paintings don't need any embellishment. The shapes and forms he creates with his wild brush strokes are incredibly engaging themselves. The building blocks add another inventive dimension to the work.

For more than a decade, the former Queen Katherine School student says he's experimented with his art, not quite able to settle completely into a style of his own which he could continue with and become very proficient at. However, that all changed two years ago when he came up with Blok Abstract.

"To create an artistic style, which fundamentally works is a very precious thing," explains David.

"In 2015, I found my style. I'm skilled at the balance of colours and both simple and complex shapes. Once, when looking at these shapes and colours, I found the experience of looking at them as being too flat. I thought what could I do to remedy this? Create mounds of papier mache, onto which I could paint? I soon settled on the idea of using children's building bricks, and have not looked back since."

Influenced by the likes of Pablo Picasso, Willem de Kooning and cubist painter Alexandra Nechita, David believes much of his creativity is due to his paranoid schizophrenia.

"I've had two distinct bouts: once, following leaving school after completing my A-levels, when I was 19, in 1998, and once again after stopping my medication in 2005/2006." He was in Westmorland General Hospital for five months.

"I attribute much of my distinct and precise creative abilities to this illness opening up my mind. I have negligible side effects with the medication I take, and consider myself otherwise well."

Born in Bradford in 1979, David was brought up in Kendal from the age of eight.

He took an art foundation course at Lancaster and Morecambe College in 2001/2002 followed by his first solo show Adrenalin at Kendal Library.

A foundation degree in drawing at Kendal College followed between 2008-2011, with an exhibition at Kendal's Josefina Gallery, in 2015, Eclipsed by Schizophrenia, A Retrospective 2000-2015.

With Play still running for a few more weeks, David is already looking ahead.

"What I'm most excited about is for the future of my Pop Abstract. I continue to improve, piece by piece, and I am thoroughly engaged with this niche style. Originality, I prize heavily, and I have seen so much contemporary abstract art being repeated, so I am often put off by it.

"Every element is considered and organic, coming together quickly and naturally with a 'schizophrenic, creative mind.'"

Signature Gallery is open Monday-Saturday, from 10am-5pm. For further information telephone 01539-730260.