Self-Portrait

“[Iberê] challenges his own image in front of the mirror: I am he that sees and I represent what I am, thus disclosing his soul to the contemplator. Valiant, courageous, arrogant, melancholic, the story of a man’s life is told by its main protagonist. As if this were in fact a visual manifest, the sitter surrounds himself with things, objects which create an atmosphere and colors that proffer information about who he is.
An oil painting from 1941 shows Iberê in surroundings laden with meaning. Shafts and rays of sunlight pierce the stormy landscape of rolling hills. The dry leaves, with their twisted branches, evoke the metaphor of the landscape as a state of mind. He is portrayed in three-quarters profile, which emphasizes the importance of his facial bone structure, revealing a trace of his racial identity, his mixed blood.”
María José Herrera, Iberê Camargo: um ensaio visual (Porto Alegre: Fundação Iberê Camargo, 2009), 99.