A NEW set of environmentally themed exhibitions are set to launch in Southampton this year.

In line with the city's UK City of Culture 2025 bid, Southampton City Gallery has announced a series of exhibitions to explore environmental concerns and the impact of climate change.

The new season has already got underway with Earth Art: The Common Ground, which features sculpture, drawing and photography from Southampton’s collection by key practitioners of the Land Art movement.

Earth Art, also known as Land Art, is a movement that draws on the natural landscape to create sculptures, on-site structures recorded as photographs, sometimes with text and other art forms that embody a direct relationship with the environment.

Then, opening on February 18, the Gallery presents There Rolls the Deep: The Rising Sea Level Paintings which will be showing new paintings by Julian Perry, that explore coastal erosion as emblematic of the challenges facing the world.

Daily Echo: Southampton City Art Gallery. Southampton City Art Gallery.

Described as a "passionate response to climate change" the works are being funded by a grant from Arts Council England.

Later in the year, the Gallery will host Kurt Jackson’s Biodiversity, opening May 26, an exhibition of paintings, found objects and sculptures by Jackson that were made in locations across the UK, including the New Forest and south coast.

His work is said to reflect the "amazingly biodiverse world we live in and how this is changing as a result of human activity and climate change".

Cllr Spiros Vassiliou, the council's Cabinet Member for Communities, Culture and Heritage, said: “Climate change is one of the biggest challenges we face, and this compelling exhibition shows the current and impending effects it has on our local environment.

"It’s an important story to tell as Southampton bids to become UK City of Culture 2025 and for our commitment to delivering Net Zero by 2030 in Southampton.”