Resumo

CUTHBERTSON, Hazel. Horror and beauty: Processing trauma through creative action in the work of Alexis Preller. IT [online]. 2024, n.38, pp.1-23. ISSN 2617-3255.  https://doi.org/10.17159/2617-3255/2024/n38a5.

In a radio interview in 1964, South African artist Alexis Preller spoke about being able to visualise beauty while undergoing horrifying experiences. The examples that stimulated his imagination in this way were the volcanic eruption he witnessed in the Belgian Congo in 1939 and his experiences as an army medical orderly during WWII. Preller processed these unsettling, traumatic, and extreme experiences throughout his career as a professional artist using the creative action of painting to regain a state of personal emotional equilibrium. In this article, I draw on underutilised sources that record Preller's recollections and those of his one-time partner, Christi Truter, which provide valuable psychological insights into the artist's work. I apply psychoanalyst Sophia Richman's theory of creative action as an instrument for confronting and transcending severe trauma to a discussion of some of Preller's paintings produced in the 1940s after his return to civilian life. In the safe space of his studio, his work facilitated a dissociated state of consciousness, or what psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi terms a "flow" experience, which enabled him to witness, transform, externalise, and transcend trauma, promoting recovery, giving meaning to the past, and reconnecting his personal life narrative.

Palavras-chave : Alexis Preller; trauma and art; creative action; safe space; flow experience; recovery through art.

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