Since May 1999, Gil Bruvel has been working on a $2-million private commission on the $15-million estate of Paul Frame, CEO and President of Seitel, Inc. What began as a single commission for a ceiling painting has grown to include more paintings and sculptures, as well as the design of stonework, columns, stained glass windows, doors, a back plate and door handles, a bas-relief, flooring, a newel post and handrails. Besides the usual canvas and paint, Gil is using previously unexplored media for his work—stainless steel, stained glass, etched glass, stone, resin, and more—to create a Bruvellian world for his client. This Houston estate commission has brought together three areas of Gil’s expertise—art, design, and technology—and his lifetime’s experiences.

As a boy in France, Gil often worked with his father who was a cabinetmaker. In his father’s studio, Gil grew up learning about spatial relationships, and gained practical experience fitting things together.

“Living in the countryside in France, there weren’t a lot of options for recreation. I spent a lot of time building things like toys and then later helping my father in the studio,” Gil said. “I had a good understanding of how to build things, how things fit together. It was a very beneficial experience. When it comes to building, for example, massive theater doors for Paul’s house, the whole mechanic of it made sense because I already had the knowledge of how to put things together.”

Gil’s apprenticeship at the Restoration Workshop in Chateaurenard, France, from 1974 – 1977, also provided solid background for the Houston project.

“It was an all-encompassing education—not only for understanding the anatomy of an art work but also the context in which it was made—the style, the architectural details, even the political systems of the time. It was an overall artistry course,” said Gil.

So when Gil undertook the first commission for Paul’s home—a ceiling painting—he was able to call on the expertise gained from restoring a ceiling painting in a chapel in France. Here, he learned that “it wasn’t just about restoring the painting, it was understanding the underlying structure, the style, the moldings around it. It wasn’t just about fixing the art work, it was about the whole context.”

Since the Restoration Workshop, Gil has shown his luminous works with their singular vision around the world, garnering critical praise, and gaining hundreds of collectors of his original paintings and sculptures, and thousands of collectors of limited-edition prints.

In 1992, Gil ventured into experimenting with a computer for 3-D graphics, hiring professionals to work one-on-one with him. He then taught himself how to push the limits of the machine. He has even been commissioned to create his well-known, complex landscapes and worlds in 3-D that were featured in a CD-ROM computer game. Until the Houston estate commission, however, Gil’s computer work and fine art were entirely distinct from one another.

“Using computers started as an experiment and exploration at first,” said Gil. “Only recently have computers become powerful enough to match the power of creative thinking. Once I started working on the decorative stonework for Paul’s house and experimenting with technology, I realized I could do even more. It expands the realm of possibilities.”

While working on the Houston commission, Gil’s computer explorations and his fine art have converged, with Gil using the computer as a virtual assistant. “Computers completely change the dynamic of creating,” said Gil. “The focus is about the creative process rather than the technological difficulty of fabricating it.” Gil has mastered the computer to increase efficiency, enhance creativity, and explore different media. He utilizes it in much the same way a sculptor works with clay models—to generate and shape ideas, and to work out design solutions.

“You don’t have the traditional touch of clay, but using computers is similar,” said Gil. “The advantage is that computers have more flexibility than clay so an artist can spend more time on the creative, rather than the mechanical, aspect. Once the computer program becomes second nature, it’s very much the same process.”

“As an artist, Bruvel is unique in that his work straddles two art worlds divided by five centuries in time: the 15th-century world of Renaissance painting tradition, and the 21st-century, silicon-based world of digital visualization,” said Holle Humphries, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the department of art and art history at the University of Texas at Austin. “He learned to integrate (the computer’s) capabilities to help him achieve his goals as an artist; more importantly, he sublimated the capabilities of the machine to meet his demands to maintain his style and his aesthetic as an artist. It’s extraordinary, impressive.”