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Douglas Coupland’s New Muse is a Vincent Van Gogh Doppelganger

Douglas Coupland has a new muse – and he bears an uncanny resemblance to Vincent van Gogh.

The famed Canadian artist and writer – who I chatted with a few years back on everything from millennial angst to advice for artists – embarked on a worldwide search for individuals resembling the renowned Dutch painter.

And a British native named Daniel Baker of the southern England town of Christchurch came out on top out of 1,250 entrants from 37 countries.

Baker travelled to Vancouver, where he underwent a 3D scanning process using hundreds of cameras to generate facial data. Coupland will use the data as source material to create a large 3D bronze sculpture that will be revealed on April 22, 2017 at a special pre-conference event for attendees of the TED Conference in Vancouver.

Douglas Coupland
Image: The Toronto Star

“Meeting Dan was a very strange experience because I’d spent months looking at Vincent lookalikes on a computer screen,” said Coupland in a media statement, “and then suddenly there was this man—my Vincent van Gogh—hopping out of a taxi looking like he’d just stepped out of the year 1889.”

Douglas Coupland
Image: The Toronto Star

Anthony von Mandl, who will install the sculpture — aptly named “Vincent”— at his winery in B.C.’s Okanagan Valley, commissioned the piece.

So, basically, you now have another reason to plan that trip to ‘The Pacific Province.’

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Erin Davis

Erin is a Toronto-based actor, writer and queen of the side hustle. When she’s not writing the day away in a face mask, she’s taking in the city’s vibrant arts scene, doing a red carpet interview or brunching with her leading ladies. Follow me: @erinnicoledavis