A kitten singed whiskers that survived the McKinney Fire hides in rocks in the Klamath National Forest northwest of Yreka, California, on July 31, 2022. The largest fire in California this year is forcing thousands of people to evacuate as it destroys homes and rips through the state's dry terrain, whipped up by strong winds and lightning storms. The McKinney Fire was zero percent contained, CalFire said, spreading more than 51,000 acres near the city of Yreka. (Photo by David McNew/AFP Photo)

Istanbul-based Ali Gulec is a graphic artist with a difference. His surreal illustrations are like identikit drawings aiming to prosecute the material arts. Working on the margins of what is possible with his medium, Gulec's forms, figures, and situations are remarkable for their clarity and strength of purpose, and maintain an iconographic intensity that would make any rock band bereft of an album cover salivate with admiration.

A reveler poses for pictures at the Victorian Picnic during the Wave and Goth festival in Leipzig June 6, 2014. The annual festival, known in Germany as Wave-Gotik Treffen (WGT), features over 150 bands and artist in venues all over the city playing Gothic rock and other styles of the dark wave music subculture. The event, one of the biggest of its kind, attracts a regular audience of up to 20,000, the organizers said. REUTERS/Thomas Peter

“Pink Portrait” series by Scott Scheidly makes a slightly different and more literal use of the glamorization; by making the subjects glamorous. Napoleon stuns with a flower crest and pink shoulder tassels, Stalin earns medals of heart and butterfly, rocks a tiny pink earring, and a uniform Elle Woods would be proud of, while Clint Eastwood gets ready to face off in a gorgeous lavender shawl. These guys may be tough, but they all look pretty in pink.

A photo taken on August 29, 2014, shows Mount Tavurvur erupting in eastern Papua New Guinea, spewing rocks and ash into the air, forcing the evacuation of local communities and international flights to be re-routed. Mount Tavurvur, which destroyed the town of Rabaul when it erupted simultaneously with nearby Mount Vulcan in 1994, rumbled to life early in the morning on the tip of the remote island of New Britain. (Photo by Oliver Bluett/AFP Photo)

An aerial view of open pits of CODELCO's Andina (L) and Anglo American's Los Bronces copper mines with Olivares glaciers in the background (top L) at Los Andes Mountain range, near Santiago city, November 17, 2014. The rock glaciers of the Chilean central zone, a huge source of water for the basins of the capital, are said to be threatened by the environmental impacts of hydroelectric and mining projects, according to environmental activists Greenpeace. (Photo by Ivan Alvarado/Reuters)

A man poses standing on a rock looking at the aurora borealis, or northern lights, illuminating the night sky at Embleton Bay in Northumberland, England, on February 27, 2014. The northern lights is a fantastical natural light display with fast moving light effects caused by particles charged by the sun colliding with particles in Earth's upper atmosphere. (Photo by Tom White/PA Wire)