It sometimes seems that abstract expressionists of the 1950s were recapitulating the American spirit of conquest in their works. The American artist Ezio Martinelli (1913-1980)–best known for his sculpture–knew and exhibited with some of the abstract expressionists, and his nine large, baroquely complex drawings at Robert Henry Adams, all from the 50s, do seem to seize the space. In one of them (all are untitled), a mass of swirling, interpenetrating forms seems to rise heroically from a base and flower into all sorts of cusps, twists, turns, and holes. Empty spaces are surrounded by what look like ornate picture frames, and the many curves and knobs give this shape a musical rhythm. Another drawing, mostly in blue, shows a giant eruption from a placid sea. Though this sky-filling monster suggests a volcano, its loops and extensions and tentacles also become a world in themselves.
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The filling or emptying of space is a more explicit subject in the digital print Go Team II. A white square is separated from a surrounding black field by a lacy border of silhouetted logos, among them ones for General Electric and the company that makes the Swiss Army Knife. Ripley says he was “trying to hint at just how crowded our environment is with logos.” Unlike earlier abstractionists, Ripley doesn’t pretend to offer art based on universals. Instead he depicts our literal and philosophical entrapment in the commercial world.
