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)

The Euro sculpture is partially reflected in a puddle on a cobblestone pavement in front of the headquarters of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt on Jan. 21. (Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters)

In this photo made late Saturday, August 9, 2014, in Keelung, Taiwan, a traditional Chinese dance troupe performs during a parade marking the beginning of the Chinese folklore's mid-summer's Ghost Month Festival. Fourteen days into the seventh month of the lunar calendar, August 9, in 2014, marks the traditional Chinese Ghost Month where the gates of the underworld are opened and spirits of the deceased are set free to roam the world of the living. The month long festivities are aimed to please the roaming spirits. (Photo by Chiang Ying-ying/AP Photo)

A Muslim woman wearing a hijab walks past a lingerie advertisement in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia April 26, 2013. (Photo by Andy Clark/Reuters)

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Inside Gucci and Madonna's Oscars 2025 afterparty – guest portraits on March 02, 2025 in Beverly Hills, California. Pictured: American actress Olivia Wilde wearing Chloé. (Photo by JR)

The Duchess of Cambridge joins Family Action at a Christmas Tree Farm to mark her new patronage, in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, UK, on the 4th December 2019. (Photo by James Whatling/The Mega Agency)

Protestor Bill Maloney (L) shouts during a live TV broadcast by BBC News Channel chief political correspondent Norman Smith after earlier forcing Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg to abandon a photocall near Parliament on March 19, 2014 in London, England. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne has delivered his Budget statement to Members of Parliament in the House of Commons. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)