Untitled

“[...] Objects from the artist’s childhood, those lively spools, spread through Iberê’s work for more than 30 years.Their biographical importance comes into the artist’s work as objects of his ‘reminiscences’, embodying various artistic possibilities. They bring in questions about his place in the space of the painting, his relationship with the reality and material of art, antagonistic movements energetically fighting each other within the canvases, to the obsessive attempts at almost going beyond the supports.”
Mônica Zielinsky, "A inquietude da arte," in Mônica Zielinsky, Paulo Sergio Duarte and Sônia Salztein, Moderno no limite (Porto Alegre: Fundação Iberê Camargo, 2008), 119.

“Figuration was progressively abandoned from the end of the 1950s. A forced period in the studio for health reasons led Iberê to return to representation of objects. This stage of his career was the beginning of his study into the emblematic form of the spools. When he was looking through the drawers of his home for a pair of scissors and found these objects, now without their thread, in their pure form, they brought back memories of his childhood. For Iberê they were both subject matter and formal element. During this phase of maturation and consolidation of his work, the forms moved progressively towards abstraction, changing the places they occupied.”
Icleia Borsa Cattani, Paisagens de dentro: as últimas pinturas de Iberê Camargo (Porto Alegre: Fundação Iberê Camargo, 2009), 50.

“[...] The spool forms in this painting dominate the entire visual field. It is completely frontal and, despite the strict composition, all the animation occurs through the rigorous colour palette. The background is almost uniform in colour, behind the piles of spools solemnly arranged on the left and overlapping on the right. Two elements break with this formal rigour: the sphere (reminiscent of a fruit from the still lifes) and the spool lying down. The dull colours derive from the background: black, brown, ochre and earth colour. The light comes from the reserves not covered by paint, as in the outlines of the central column of spools and the gentle touches of light in the two spools on the right.”
Paulo Gomes, Iberê e seu ateliê: as coisas, as pessoas e os lugares (Porto Alegre: Fundação Iberê Camargo, 2015), 150.