Contraste (Contrast)

“Over the course of the many years that Camargo exploited this theme [the spool], the materiality of his painting became increasingly important, leaving the form of the object less and less determining. What is more, the titles of the works change as the word ‘spool’ (carretel) gets replaced by ‘toy’ (brinquedo), ‘figure’, ‘contrast’, ‘symbols’, or ‘signs’. From now on, what the eye initially retains is the perceptible presence of colour which forms up almost as if it were a paste glorying in its own profound and sensual materiality. It is on top of this ostensibly raw material that drawing then comes and inscribes itself. In this close, almost physical engagement with colour, the trace of the brush becomes more and more visible, testifying to the dynamic force of the painter’s gestures. So opens a new chapter in Camargo’s painting, which gradually frees itself from the formal constraints of objects so as to attribute a greater importance to the impulsion behind the very gesture of painting.
This evolution toward a way of painting that is a times strongly gestural leads Camargo to the borders of abstraction, through the exploitation of very simple forms such as dice. [...]”
Jacques Leenhardt, Iberê Camargo: os meandros da memória (Porto Alegre: Fundação Iberê Camargo, 2010), 108.