Artists wearing Japanese traditional clown masks march during the First Konpira Festival at Kotohiragu shrine in Tokyo Wednesday, January 10, 2018. The shrine is dedicated to sailors and seafaring. (Photo by Eugene Hoshiko/AP Photo)

Actress Nicolle Rochelle, who appeared on several episodes of “The Cosby Show”, is detained as Bill Cosby arrives for his sexual assault trial at the Montgomery County Courthouse, Monday, April 9, 2018, in Norristown, Pa. Rochelle of Little Falls, N.J., was charged with disorderly conduct. (Photo by Corey Perrine/AP Photo)

A woman wearing a face mask to help curb the spread of the coronavirus stretches her body next to a masked woman sitting on a bench outside a shopping mall in Beijing, Thursday, October 21, 2021. (Photo by Andy Wong/AP Photo)

Groundhog Club handler A.J. Dereume holds Punxsutawney Phil, the weather prognosticating groundhog, during the 138th celebration of Groundhog Day on Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, Pa., Friday, February 2, 2024. Phil's handlers said that the groundhog has forecast an early spring. (Photo by Barry Reeger/AP Photo)

An image from House Television shows Republican John Rose speaking on the floor of the House of Representatives as his son Guy makes a face in Washington DC, US on June 4, 2024. (Photo by AP Photo)

Amish girls play softball after class during an end of the school year celebration on Tuesday, April 9, 2013 in Bergholz, Ohio. The celebration was also part of a farewell picnic for four women and one man from this tight-knit group in rural eastern Ohio who will enter prison on Friday, April 12, joining nine already behind bars on hate crimes convictions for hair- and beard-cutting attacks against fellow Amish. (Photo by Scott R. Galvin/AP Photo)

Only the most intrepid urban explorers cross the tattered ruins of the old Iron Curtain to endure the excessive bureaucracy, military paranoia and freezing winds of the East to hunt for the ghosts of an empire. Rebecca Litchfield is one who couldn’t resist the haunting allure of the ruins of the Soviet Union.

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)