Intelligence about artist giving rise to natural conflict (4,3)
I believe the answer is:
iraq war
'conflict' is the definition.
(the Iraq War was a conflict)
'intelligence about artist giving rise to natural' is the wordplay.
'intelligence' becomes 'iq' (short for intelligence quotient).
'about' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'artist' becomes 'RA' (Royal Academician, member of Royal Academy of Arts).
'giving rise to' is a reversal indicator.
'natural' becomes 'raw' (synonyms).
'raw' reversed gives 'war'.
'iq' placed around 'ra' is 'iraq'.
'iraq'+'war'='IRAQ WAR'
(Another definition for iraq war that I've seen is " Conflict that began in March 2003".)