Self-Portrait

"Although this might be a superficial observation, it does not prevent awareness of the intensity of the artist’s gaze in his self-portraits. By making his own portrait he seems to be not just recording his physical appearance but also the essence of his own self, his personal identity.
[...] It is important to single out the constructive gesture of this late work as one of the special characteristics of this drawing (1994). Gesture is produced by the upper limbs, concerned with manipulating the world, while the function of lower limbs is to travel through this same world. Man uses his hands to relate to his surroundings and to modify them, adapting them to his wishes for the world. Gesture is the principle of this drawing, an activity that is both manual and free, expressing the inner being of the draughtsman, and disciplined, so that it can imitate the real, one practically unique line within the tangle of the composition, which forms the whole image without removing the ink-laden pen from the paper surface."
Paulo Gomes, Iberê e seu ateliê: as coisas, as pessoas e os lugares (Porto Alegre: Fundação Iberê Camargo, 2015), 148.