My doctoral exhibition presents the results of my research. My subject is sprezzatura — perhaps best translated as ‘nonchalant elegance’. It is the kind of effortless elegance that one works hard to achieve. Professional skills grounded in extensive practice. A quantity of repetition so great that the muscles grow to remember the momentum and the precision.
The exhibition consists of oil paintings based on small-size plein air watercolours. They are made at Lake Balaton. They capture the airiness of the moment, the movement of light and its colours. These are accompanied by figurative ‘notes,’ drawings. From merging the two, the oil painting is born.
My aim is to maintain the focused attention that I use when drawing after a live model.
“The ancients said that poetry is but painting without external forms, and painting is poetry endowed with external forms.”
— Kuo Shih
Ágnes Uray-Szépfalvi
8th March, 2026