A. H.'s drawings are usually of great size. This is, of course, on the one hand, relative, and, on the other hand, perhaps insignificant information. But considering compared to what can be called great, the question becomes much more exciting. As their size can be called great in comparison with that the motifs that appear on them. The "image elements" usually drawn with thin, black pen are fairly minute, mostly less than an inch. Looking at them, their heap seems like a chaotic mesh of non-figurative web of lines, covering this or that part of the sheet like a carpet. Not only very small are the tiny little motifs but they appear quite densely beside each other; what is more, they often penetrate each other, several of them possess the very same slip of paper simultaneously, in peaceful agreement, reinforcing rather the bothering each other's effect.
Their web, mass is usually a filling up element; they represent the material of units that can be inspected, assembled from a distance. They vibrate between more easily identifiable contours of a larger scale, but their importance does not become less because of this; they do not turn into mere decorative elements. This method of composition creates only an interesting duality; the spontaneous tissue of associative tiny figures, objects, minute scenes, invented beings and never-seen objects growing apace with incredible fit into a more conscious, thought up composition. Looking at it from a distance, it can, of course, also contract. When seeing the drawing from this viewpoint we may have the impression that progress towards the inside, to the bottom of something is actually an endless process.
Only by stepping quite close to them can throbbing material be deciphered, and even than not easily. As the tiny creatures, occurrences flow into, come from each other (often literally); the gesture of one little being conduces the next one, grows from it into every direction. What makes it more difficult to unravel the lines of the black pen is that there is no starting point and end point (sometimes there is one, but even then it does not help much that little process has a direction); and that the little figures, objects often appear by fading into each other; reminding one of Lajos Vajda's constructive surrealist pictures. (Images fading into and generated from one another indicate that in these drawings everything can be permeated, everything is made of one material, everything can turn into the other). The situation (reception) is made more complicated by the fact that when at last we focus on one or two minute details, then from their movement, gestures, objects themselves a "very little" story can be gathered, conceived; and then we have not even looked at the rest of the picture. Sometimes it seems as if the drawer did not even lifts his pen, and our eyes run along the mesh of these winding lines. A.H. reveals an incredibly concentrated world. A dense, pliable, surging new dimension which further invents/creates itself. The expressivity (in spite of their small size, the lines have been drawn vigorously), the dense, tangled web of lines of the drawings reminds one of the world of Béla Kondor's and János Kass's graphics.
(In the early works colures were still present, but the abundance of elements under the transitions from one colour to the other became a decorative whirl of lines, as they were not seen from behind the colour. This does not hold in the case of one of the outstanding drawings 'Red Monument' where a row of thin figures of black lines appear on and beside a red flower with large calyx fastened to the wheels of a bicycle. In the early black-and-white drawings white patches of faces shone out the mesh; later this completely ceased. How - this is manifested the best by a drawing from 2002 that can be connected to the works which use emerging faces. We can see a line of Arab men, the intertwined lines of their shawls wave above their faces, their bodies consist of, that is, dissolve into tiny creatures.
The pulsation of the drawings flowing like carpets becomes more regular when a little motif, a ship, or recurring human figures jumping with cherry patterned parachutes are repeated steadily and, owing to the fact that they are drawn by hand, individually.
It is typical of A. H.'s humor how he applies second-hand texts. In one the drawings two words, as little as and repeated just like the figurative parts, are shown. In the lower part of the picture the word FIELD, in the upper part the word SKY can be read, constituting at the same time the basic material, background of the field and the sky, itself.)
The elements create themselves, and flow in all directions on the paper creating the impression that they could grow, weave their own motifs infinitely. And the expansion of the dimension of time and space appears also thematically in the pictures: in one of the drawings, which has its inner frame (a row of human profiles resembling Medieval gargoyles with stuck, coiled up tongues) we can see the frames of the dispute of a tiny little angel and corresponding devil. Each scene generates associations of a different story, further stages of their dispute. Their gestures change; they almost quit each other, turn their back on each other; but then, in the next scene, having found a new argument they shake their fist or stand with resignation, patiently listening to the other. The identical frames of the scenes and the fact that the framework is created from the repetition of a single element make one feel that this row could be continued endlessly. The dispute is eternal, it will last until the end of time.
Another work weaves figures along a spiral beginning from outside, going inwards. The creation of a mandala, the image of the world, is one of the means of meditation. As looking at the drawings is also a kind of meditation: the act of following up of the lines, the calligraphy of the arches branching out in all directions, the stories, movements growing out of one another passes the rhythm; we adopt the pace of their own pulsation as we look at the motionless, still moving, vibrating world. To create it singular patience was required, and it is a question after all who has drawn: each line is the invention of the hand holding the pen; but the figures longing for life apparently live their own life too. The immersion which was needed for their creation, and the depth, the act of getting to the tissue began to work at the moment of creation; and the pulsation is taken over also by the viewer when he or she steps closer to unstitch threads. This can be done only like that - the way they have been created: by putting one's heart and soul into it.
Text by: Zsófia Somogyi (curator)
Translated by: Péter Kopecsni