From the Conflicted Body - is a practice oriented research thesis on painting that explores the conflict both inside and conveyed by the body. This practice oriented research covers the worlds of Art and Drugs on their intersections. This research establishes links between drug abuse and their personal effects. Such dialogues are often found as a focus for artistic expressions. The written part of this thesis focuses on the review of previous literature on drugs and their relation to artists. This is a group with specific characteristics in terms of use, abuse and addiction to drugs and alcohol. This part intends to single out some the main issues on creative processes under that kind of circumstances. These questions then are dug deeply by revisiting some key examples: such painters like Jackson Pollock and Frida Kahlo, relating their art work with the conflicts in their lives. In the practice part of the thesis, concepts as ‗outside world‘ and ‗inner world‘, ‗conflicts‘, ‗wounds‘, ‗mirror‘ and ‗self-portrait‘ are used metaphorically, in a pictorial record. This is used as a skin, as a body, where these issues are recorded through painting materials trying that ‗the eyes can touch and the ands can see‘. It is a quest for understanding the ability of the physical and mental duality to support conflicts. A search for what might well be on its roots. It‘s an attempt to understand what happens when the body structures are not enough to pacify such ‗noisy‘ conflicts

Tese de mestrado, Pintura, Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Belas Artes, 2012