‘Managing Chaos’ is an artistic research project by Teresa Romero that explores how pressure and emotions influence the creative process. Five paintings visualise the various emotional states associated with creative work.
Managing Chaos is the practical artistic project developed as part of Teresa Romero‘s Master’s thesis in the M.A. International Management “Creative Leadership”, which explores how creativity is experienced and managed under pressure. The project investigates the emotional and psychological states that can appear during a creative process, particularly when artists work with deadlines, expectations, uncertainty, stress and self-imposed pressure.
The practical outcome consists of a series of five paintings, each representing a different state that Teresa Romero identified throughout her research: Tension, Flow, Obsession, Disgust and Resolution. Each painting uses a specific colour palette, body posture and visual atmosphere to translate these internal experiences into a physical and visual form. Red represents Tension, blue represents Flow, purple and black represent Obsession, green represents Disgust, and yellow represents Resolution.
The five states should not be understood as a fixed or chronological sequence. Instead, they form an interconnected and non-linear cycle. During the creative process, an artist can move between these states, experience several of them repeatedly, or return to an earlier state before reaching a sense of resolution.
The project combines theoretical research, interviews with nine artists from different creative disciplines, and own artistic practice. By bringing these elements together, Managing Chaos explores how pressure can both challenge and stimulate creativity. “The paintings function not only as illustrations of the research findings, but also as a form of embodied knowledge: the process of creating them allowed me to investigate pressure and creativity through direct artistic experience”.
Ultimately, the project presents creative work as a dynamic process in which uncertainty, frustration, concentration, emotional intensity and satisfaction can coexist and contribute to the development of the final artwork.
School of Business and Law