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)

A police officer fires his tear gas launcher during a clash with student protesters in Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia, Thursday, October 8, 2020. Thousands of enraged students and workers staged rallies across Indonesia on Thursday in opposition to the new law they say will cripple labor rights and harm the environment. (Photo by Trisnadi/AP Photo)

Turkish police detained dozens of demonstrators participating in an LGBT pride march in Istanbul, Turkey on June 26, 2021. Police fired tear gas, rubber bullets and blocked attempts by protesters to gather in large numbers after a government decision to ban pride events in recent years. (Photo by Diego Cupolo/NurPhoto/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Ballet dancer and performer Ashlee Montague of New York wears a gas mask while she dances in Times Square as the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak continued in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., March 18, 2020. (Photo by Andrew Kelly/Reuters)

Supporters of Honduran presidential candidate for the Opposition Alliance against the Dictatorship party Salvador Nasralla, are affected by tear gas during a protest outside the Electoral Supreme Court (TSE), to demand the announcement of the election final results in Tegucigalpa, on November 30, 2017. (Photo by Orlando Sierra/AFP Photo)

January 22, 2017; Atlanta, GA, USA; Atlanta Falcons cheerleaders take a picture in the confetti after the game against the Green Bay Packers in the 2017 NFC Championship Game at the Georgia Dome. Atlanta defeated Green Bay 44-21. (Photo by Jason Getz/USA TODAY Sports)

Seiichiro Nishimoto, CEO of Shelter Co., poses wearing a gas mask at a model room for the company's nuclear shelters in the basement of his house in Osaka, Japan on April 26, 2017. With nearby North Korea increasing its show of power day by day with missile launches and nuclear tests, people in Japan are preparing for the worst by building private nuclear shelters, Reuters reports. (Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)