Linocuts created for Jack Lohmann's forthcoming book, White Light: The Afterlives of Phosphorus (Knopf, 2025). Carved and printed linocuts, with touch ups in Photoshop.
Prologue. A whale fall in motion.
Chapter 2. Phosphorus supports the growth of life; as it erodes from mountains downstream rivers, the phosphate "reenters" circulation (after being "trapped" in geology, or rocks) and contributes to increased density of plant life and other biological activity.
Chapter 3. An English countryside village. As sewage systems were introduced, phosphorus in sewage that was previously recycled into agricultural practices was increasingly washed out to the ocean, exiting the cycle of use by humans and animals for the foreseeable future.
Chapter 4. Phosphate mining in Florida and other hotspots degrades the environment; when land is filled in again to be used, it lacks the depth and vitality that can support robust plant life.
Chapter 7. The swamps of Florida, rich with life in their rivers.
Chapter 9. Healthy soil contains a vibrant and complex ecosystem of microbes, invisible to the naked eye but crucial to grow and sustain robust and healthy animals and plants.
