Gil Bruvel : Real Magic
Gil Bruvel grew up in France and began drawing lessons at age 9 and learning sculpture basics. He began working with oil paint at the age of 12 and the local environment had an enormous and lasting influence on his palette –giving him luminous colors he continues to use today. Gil Bruvel has been exhibiting his work since 1974 in various places around the world and including: France, Monaco, England, Denmark, The Netherlands, Hungary, Japan, Singapore, New York, Florida, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, California and Hawaii. His work has received many awards and his collectors span the globe. See more at www.bruvel.com
Daniel Mirante : What are your major artistic influences and themes?
Gil Bruvel : My work seeks to explore the intersection of the conscious and unconscious, to examine and, to some extent, negate the idea that there is a division between these two “worlds.” Instead, I’m seeking a new way of seeing–what I call “visionary”—a way of being in the world as it was really meant to be—whole, rich, profound, and absolutely magnificent in its precision.
What I want my work to do is open the realms of imaginative experience for audiences. So the canvases delve into deep personal mythology and explore visions as a way to create a link between the conscious and the unconscious. My intention is to get closer to the mystery of the transformative process of living and life—whatever is engendered by growth and metamorphosis in the world of human experience. So my paintings merge physical and organic forms to at once approach this state of change and flux and also represent it on canvas via an amalgamation that is part human, part idea, part consciousness, and part spirit. I think, as Joseph Campbell famously said, “The role of the artist is to mythologize the world”—that’s what I am trying to do. I’m working with a certain lexicon—the color, the figures, the forms—that produce a mythology that you can step into, that you can inhabit and share and make your own.
My primary influence is the natural world and the startling geometries that occur in infinite variations all around us. From there, I ground my work in my training, which was classic and quite extensive. I studied at Laurent De Montcassin’s Restoration Workshop in France. And then as I grew as a painter, I admired and was influenced by the work of Max Ernst, The Fauvists, Francis Bacon, Vermeer, Gonzalo Fonseca, Antonio Gaudi, Noguchi and others. In Ernst’s work, for example, you see every moment is, as he says, “an invention, a discovery a revelation.” He invokes not “the plastic invention of a felt reality,” but really, to quote Shakespeare, “the thing itself.” So my work seeks that immediacy, that quality of fresh realization that is both surprising and stunning. That’s why the merging of forms, the fantastic visions, the use of color.
Lately, I’ve been also working with sculpture and functional art to find different expressions for my ideas and also bring my art from private collections out into the world. It’s exciting work, as it allows me to let my ideas flourish.
Daniel Mirante : What role does the computer take in your painting and sculpture?
Gil Bruvel : Well, the computer helps me design in 3-D when I’m working on functional art or with sculpture. It’s a great way to play a bit, but the original idea, the vision, the inspiration, the force behind the work is already complete in my head.
I don’t use the computer for my painting process whatsoever; instead I use my hand as a kind of seismograph that records the intuitive impulses of my brain.
So the computer is a tool, like a paint brush, and it’s useful to help me get where I want to go.
Daniel Mirante : Have you been to the worlds that you describe through your art?
Gil Bruvel : To the extent that this world exists for all of us, yes, of course. I reject the idea that my art displays a “somewhere else”; instead, it opens up a reality that is right here, right now, and I’m simply inviting the viewer in. Each canvas holds an experience, or perhaps many experiences, and I am simply providing the window, you see?
Art should be this “in the moment,” this inspirational. It shouldn’t take you away—it should bring you more fully to the moment and to yourself. That’s the revelation.
absolutely inspiring work and wonderfully rendered interview – a stunning addition to this incredible website and art culture expanse