A struggling artist has seen his career take off - after being told he looks like the late, great Vincent van Gogh.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 I'm Karl Stafford, artist.
00:02 I would class myself as surrealist.
00:05 Salvador Dali, Escher, and all the surrealist movements
00:10 is I really like.
00:12 When I first saw the flat,
00:28 I didn't realize Van Gogh lived in this area
00:31 and he taught in this area.
00:32 We had a look at the flat and decided I was gonna have it.
00:46 And then we sat in the park, Spencer Square,
00:49 and we noticed that there's a bust about that high.
00:53 And we went, "Oh, that's Van Gogh's."
00:55 We read about it.
00:57 Then realized he actually lived here.
01:00 And then he taught here,
01:03 a boys' boarding school across the road.
01:05 And then I looked like him.
01:08 So it was like, "Wow, this is amazing.
01:11 "I'm an unknown artist.
01:12 "No one knows who I am."
01:14 And Van Gogh was kind of like the same.
01:18 No one knew who he was.
01:20 No one recognized him.
01:22 He had no money 'cause it was Theo that kept him,
01:26 his brother.
01:28 So I'm kind of like,
01:30 what do you call it?
01:33 On a par with him, even though it's 300 years ago,
01:38 that he's the same,
01:42 that when he lived here, no one knew who he was.
01:45 And I'm the same, and no one knows who I am.
01:48 And we're kind of like clicked in that kind of way.
01:55 But when I first came to the flat,
01:58 it had students in it, and it was trashed.
02:02 - You said that you looked like him.
02:03 Did you ever get sort of mistaken?
02:06 - I did when I went to the Van Gogh thing in London.
02:11 I took my other half's hat, straw hat,
02:16 and I sat in the room with this straw hat,
02:20 and everyone's looking at me twice.
02:22 And then when it kind of finished, we went to reception,
02:26 the reception lady said I had to look twice,
02:29 'cause I really thought that was Van Gogh
02:31 sitting in the corner with a straw hat on.
02:35 So every now and again, if I put my straw hat on,
02:38 I look like Van Gogh a little bit.
02:40 And I like to think that I'm his kind of like brother
02:43 in the 21st century.
02:45 Good luck.