A member of the Siberian Battalion of the Ukraine's Armed Forces International Legion smokes a disposable vape during military exercises, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, at an undisclosed location in Kyiv region, Ukraine on December 13, 2023. (Photo by Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters)

American actress Elizabeth Banks in the first decade of December 2023 shows off her lacy ensemble. (Photo by Elizabethbanks/Instagram)

Pupils from St Teilo’s Catholic Primary School in Tenby, South Wales, perform a scene from their Nativity play in the second decade of December 2023. The three kings, played by Jack Rigby, Santos Basilnomo and Tommy Leggett, pretended to follow a star on South Beach, a stone’s throw from the school. (Photo by Joann Randles/Cover Images)

In this photo taken on January 20, 2024 a tourist poses in front of incense sticks drying in a courtyard in the village of Quang Phu Cau on the outskirts of Hanoi. Families living and working in the “incense village” of Quang Phu Cau now also make sticks in yellow, blue and green, catering to visitors eager to snap shots for Instagram. (Photo by Nhac Nguyen/AFP Photo)

A grave cleaner holds up a skull during exhumation works at the Cemetery General in Guatemala City May 24, 2013. If a lease on a grave has expired or not been paid, grave cleaners will break open the crypts to remove and rebury the bodies. (Photo by Jorge Dan Lopez/Reuters)

A labourer carries a basket of bananas inside a wholesale fruit and vegetable market in Bengaluru, India, August 22, 2016. (Photo by Abhishek N. Chinnappa/Reuters)

A general view shows smoke and volcanic ashes billowing from volcano Cotopaxi in Pedregal, Ecuador, late 07 October 2015. (Photo by Jose Jacome/EPA)

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)