Hot-air balloons glide over the historical Cappadocia region with Turkish flags to mark August 30 Turkiye's Victory Day in Nevsehir, Turkiye on August 30, 2023. (Photo by Behcet Alkan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

The aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, glow in the sky over St Mary's Lighthouse in Whitley Bay on the North East coast, UK on Friday, May 10, 2024. (Photo by Owen Humphreys/PA Images via Getty Images)

Stunning Northern Lights/aurora borealis display in Minster on Sea in Kent, UK on May 10, 2024. (Photo by James Bell/Alamy Live News)

Maddy Ashford and fellow wrestler and trainer Paul Sargeant at a training session at The Lancashire Wrestling Federation in Chorley, UK on October 9, 2024. Maddy Ashford is still at school and is a wrestler taking the ring by storm and has competed in 40 WWE-style competitions in just 10 months. (Photo by William Lailey/South West News Service)

The galactic core of the Milky Way glows brightly in the clear night sky above St Catherine?s Chapel at Abbotsbury in Dorset, UK on August 2, 2024. (Photo by Graham Hunt/Alamy Live News)

The Brocken specter or mountain spectre phenomenon, where the shadow of an observer is magnified and cast on a cloud opposite from the sun or bright light source, is observed on the Howgills, outside Sedbergh, Britain, on December 26, 2024. (Photo by Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters)

Thiago Salgado from the US flips in the air after riding Razzmatazz during Round 3 of the 2023 PBR Unleash the Beast Monster Energy Buck Off at the Madison Square Garden in New York on January 8, 2023. (Photo by Timothy A. Clary/AFP Photo)

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)