Study for No tempo (Into Time)

"[...] [The study for No tempo (Into Time)] is a key work in this exhibition, including as it does a landscape, still life and the human figure. Dating from 1991, it indicates the permanence of this subject matter in the artist’s work, now synthesised in the density and complexity inherent to Iberê’s creative practice. Juxtaposition of the three themes in the same work demonstrates that, despite their development at different periods, their permanence and even simultaneity are features of a fully articulated organic idea of art, a relationship between intentions, calculation and technical investigations, a set of actions chronologically situated in search of their best and most effective representation.
Landscape emerges in Iberê Camargo’s work as the foundation of his practice, unfolding in his pursuit of mastery of the art of painting itself, while still life appears as an ideal way of developing construction of the picture space, which allowed him full command of the visual space. The human figure is the end, both as object of representation and in introducing his need to address man and his anxieties, that which is more human, or the actual essence of people, which distinguishes them from other humans and other living creatures.
[...]
Returning to the study for No tempo (Into Time) and looking at its composition of two figures (a woman and a cyclist), a landscape with hill and clouds and a table of jumbled spools, we can understand the cycle of Iberê’s career: an uninterrupted sequence of discoveries, inventions, developments, improvements, exhaustion, new discoveries etc., in other words a continuous flow of intellectual and manual activities that consumed his life, entirely devoted to artistic invention and activity. Like the life of a dedicated worker, as he himself said, 'Painting is a craft, it is knowing how to use the tools'.”
Paulo Gomes, Iberê e seu ateliê: as coisas, as pessoas e os lugares (Porto Alegre: Fundação Iberê Camargo, 2015), 147.