Los Angeles native Mike Stilkey has always been attracted to painting and drawing not only on vintage paper, record covers and book pages, but on the books themselves. Using a mix of ink, colored pencil, paint and lacquer, Stilkey depicts a melancholic and at times a whimsical cast of characters inhabiting ambiguous spaces and narratives of fantasy and fairy tales. A lingering sense of loss and longing hints at emotional depth and draws the viewer into their introspective thrall with a mixture of capricious poetry, wit, and mystery. (Photo by Mike Stilkey)

A weather vane on a farm building close to the HS2 line on November 24, 2020 in Great Missenden, England. HS2 protesters continue to occupy key infrastructure sites along the proposed HS2 route claiming that the project is “the most carbon-intensive and environmentally destructive project in UK history”. (Photo by Jim Dyson/Getty Images)

American singer Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamini, known professionally as Doja Cat attends the 63rd Annual GRAMMY Awards at Los Angeles Convention Center on March 14, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)

Open jaws of a Great White Shark Carcharodon Carcharias, South Africa. (Photo by Stephen Frink Collection/Alamy Stock Photo)

Father Felix Mendoza, a Venezuelan Catholic priest, center, prays over a woman who cries, saying she is in physical pain, at a public hospital in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, May 11, 2021, amid the new coronavirus pandemic. Father Felix has been visiting patients at the hospital to comfort the sick, for the last 20 years. (Photo by Ariana Cubillos/AP Photo)

Belgium's Crown Princess Elisabeth poses with dancers and youth after a ceremony on the occasion of her 18th birthday, outside the Royal Palace in Brussels, Belgium on October 25, 2019. (Photo by Yves Herman/Reuters)

A red deer stag in Bushy Park, southwest London, pulls a comical face for the camera in the second decade of November 2023. (Photo by Andrew Wood/Caters News Agency)

Tourists photograph a red dear stag visiting a car park near Glen Coe on December 1, 2017 in Glen Coe,Scotland. On the first day of the meteorological calendar, the UK was experiencing slightly warmer temperatures today with weather forecasters indicating that the recent cold spell is almost over. Yesterday's snow across eastern parts of England is expected to melt away over the course Friday as temperatures start to rise. (Photo by Jeff J. Mitchell/Getty Images)