Dentro do mato (Inside the Bush)

“Even the earliest paintings and drawings from the 1940s, soon show a strong concern for apprehending the fugitive moment, for capturing the mystery of things. This early aspiration continues in statements but acquires artistic importance when projected into the development of smaller, densely painted works that are, in particular, evidence of an obsessive, modern spirit of research. Iberê’s painting from this period contains internal discussion between its elements, so that the skies, vegetation or streams become less important, almost hidden under the strong viscosity of the paint material; the disquiet suggested by the pictures comes from the nervous gesture and repetitive handling of brushstrokes that almost embrace the canvases by covering them entirely. The tortuous use of the material leaves perception of the elements unclear and brings to the foreground the idea of a burgeoning organism, violent in the painter’s act of painting, unstable to the spectator. The tragedy engrained in these small pictures is his uncertainty, the foundation for his development, a kind of saturated confusion of colour and rapid gestural marks.”
Mônica Zielinsky, "A inquietude da arte," in Mônica Zielinsky, Paulo Sergio Duarte and Sônia Salztein, Moderno no limite (Porto Alegre: Fundação Iberê Camargo, 2008), 118.