Gil Bruvel was born in Sydney, Australia, in 1959 to French parents.  When he was 4 years old, the family moved back to France. As a child, Gil often worked with his cabinetmaker father in the family’s workshop, learning spatial skills that would play a large role in his future work. Even as a young boy, Gil’s parents noticed his affinity for art. At a boarding school in historical Avignon, Gil’s first art teacher encouraged the 9-year-old and nurtured his obvious talent. By the young age of 12, Gil had already completed his first full-scale oil painting.

Gil’s avid appetite for art led his parents to enroll him in a prestigious restoration workshop when he was 14. Due to his young age, instructor Laurent de Montcassin put him on a probationary period of six months during which difficult assignments were piled on the young artist in an effort to discourage him. This only served to pique Gil’s interest and motivate him more. As a full-fledged student at the workshop, Gil mastered techniques dating back to the 1400s to restore masterpieces such as a ceiling painting in a 17^th-century Renaissance chapel. He also took college-level art and art history courses. The hands-on restoration experience and the history studies gave the artist an appreciation and knowledge of different eras and cultures that continue to influence his artistic style.

Although this intensive apprenticeship took most of Gil’s time, he continued to paint and build his own body of work. The Musee des Baux-de-Provence exhibited Gil’s work in 1976, giving the young artist the confidence to leave the Restoration Workshop in 1977 and set up his own studio in St. Remy de Provence.

During the next decade, Gil continued to explore his own unique vision and style and exhibited widely in Europe and Japan, garnering numerous fans along the way. He visited the United States in 1986 for the first time. In 1987, Gil was the youngest recipient ever of the prestigious bronze medal awarded by the Palais des Congres in Paris. For the next several years he traveled between France and the United States, settling in California in 1990. In 1991, he moved to Maui, Hawaii. With his fine art, Gil has amassed thousands of worldwide collectors of his original paintings, bronze sculptures and fine art prints. Numerous galleries throughout the world have exhibited his work—from Budapest to Boca Raton to Singapore. Plus, three books have been published on Gil’s work, while two more are in progress, one of which is a children’s book.

In 1992, Gil began to experiment with 3-D graphics. After several years of learning everything he could about art and technology, Gil was commissioned to create his well-known landscapes and worlds in 3-D for a CD-ROM computer game. He has since mastered the technology and uses the computer in the way an artist uses clay models—to explore, generate, and fine-tune ideas.

In 1999, Gil moved to Houston, Texas, to work on a ceiling painting for a $15-million estate. Over four years later, Gil completed the work on the private commission that has grown to include not only more paintings and sculptures, but the design of stonework, columns, stained glass windows, doors, door handles and back plates, a bas-relief, flooring, a newel post and handrails. It is interesting that the art, design, and technology experiences of Gil’s lifetime have merged in this project and have led Gil to work in new ways with new materials.

Despite the intensity of the Houston project, Gil continued to provide his collectors with new works. Furthermore, several publications have recently featured his work—Les Avenues, The Book—L.A., Fine magazine, and Jumeira Beach magazine.

Gil Bruvel persists in exploring new ideas in his art and expanding his repertoire, pushing his imagination and abilities to the limit. More and more collectors clamor for this artist’s works, seeking entrance to the mysterious, magical Bruvellian world.

Lahaina Galleries is proud to represent the paintings and sculptures of Gil Bruvel, a wondrous talent and a brilliant visionary artist.