Collector’s Choice - Looking for Vincent by Ganbrood

Looking for Vincent is a portrait series by Ganbrood, in which the artist reimagines the face of Van Gogh, how he might have looked. The project is based on 35 of the Dutch master’s self-portraits and follows the long artistic tradition of reconstructing historical figures. Rather than offering an exact likeness, Looking for Vincent raises broader questions about identity, memory, and authorship, asking where Van Gogh ends and where the artist, the machine, and interpretation begin.

Do not look at my paintings for answers; look at them for the questions they ask of you, 2024 by Ganbrood

Ganbrood is a Dutch AI artist who combines his background in special effects, 3D animation, video games, and photography with AI and machine learning. Since 2019, he has focused on generating photorealistic portraits of individuals who lived before the invention of the camera. He has been using GANs to reimagine portraits of figures from famous artworks, such as Botticelli’s Venus, the lady on the Statue of Liberty, Mona Lisa, and historical figures like Jesus and Vincent van Gogh.

Before photography, artists had no visual records to depict historical, religious, or mythical figures, and instead they relied on written descriptions, oral traditions, iconography, and symbolic attributes. In medieval and Renaissance Europe, figures like saints were identified with consistent symbols (like Saint Peter with keys), and these portraits didn’t try to show what someone looked like, but to represent who they were, their status, or how they were meant to be seen.

What is madness, if not the soul’s protest against an indifferent world?, 2024 by Ganbrood

I paint not to reveal, but to conceal; for in concealment, the truth is most honest, 2024 by Ganbrood

In his series Looking for Vincent, Ganbrood continues this historical tradition of imaginative reconstruction with the use of AI and machine learning. To simulate what Van Gogh might have looked like in real life, he trains the model on 35 of Van Gogh’s self-portraits, a rare photograph of the artist at age 19, and painted portraits created by his contemporaries. 

Van Gogh produced more than 30 self-portraits between 1886 and 1889, often using himself as a model during periods of financial difficulty. The stylistic differences between these works reflect Van Gogh’s changing style, mental state, self-perception, and a deeper exploration of identity. These portraits show how he saw (and at times struggled to see) himself. Each image captures his emotional and artistic state at the moment it was created.

Self-Portrait with Grey Felt Hat, 1887 by Vincent van Gogh

Ganbrood’s reconstructions, while trained on Van Gogh’s visual data, also reflect the artist’s own decisions and aesthetic input. In this sense, Looking for Vincent becomes a portrait not only of Van Gogh, but also of the artist reconstructing him and of the technologies used in that process. The project raises questions about authorship: how much of the final image is Van Gogh, how much is Ganbrood, and how much is the machine interpreting patterns through probabilistic models? 

Looking for Vincent was first presented at the Kate Vass Galerie booth during Untitled Art Fair in Miami in December 2024.

Works from the series are now part of private collections, including Seedphrase.

In every stroke, I leave behind not only my dreams but the ashes of those I could not live, 2024 by Ganbrood