Make it light: Las Vegas artist turning heads nationwide with self-styled works

Kimberley McGee

Thursday, Feb. 7, 2002 | 8:25 a.m.

Hunched over a light table with a pair of expensive sunglasses perched on her freckled nose, artist Austine Wood Comarow works in a world only she can see.

Green chameleons flash their silvery scales at the setting sun, blue fish tumble in a foaming sea and a lone cactus droops under the weight of its flowery fruit.

In Comarow's self-stylized art medium, called Polage, tiny pieces of cellophane reflect images that can only be seen through a polarized lens or, in more common terms, sunglasses.

In the same way that tiny drops of clear water form a rainbow across the sky, Comarow's small pieces of cellophane used primarily to wrap candy or flowers are carefully placed on large Plexiglas discs to form pictures. The clear pieces catch light in different shades of primary colors depending on how the light hits the grain of each bit of cellophane.

Each 16- to 34-inch piece of art takes up to one month to complete. Once finished, the round Plexiglas pieces are displayed in a decorative light box with a rotating polarizing filter placed behind the image. As the filter slowly turns, so do the images.

"Frankly, I don't understand the physics of it myself," Comarow said from her Henderson studio. "Light is such an enormous mystery, a paradox really. I don't try to understand it, I just work with it in an empirical, trial-and-error way."

Her method seems to be working.

"Earth: A Polarized View," 18 back-lit pieces chronicling Comarow's work, is on display through March 18 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art Restaurant Gallery.

Her works can also be seen at EuroDisneyland in Paris, the Montgomery Museum of Art in Alabama and the Clark County Heritage Museum. A 25-inch piece depicting petroglyphs and space probes is on display in the atrium of the Omnimax Theatre at the Boston Museum of Science.

The museum shows lend prestige to the work, Comarow said, but it's the enjoyment she sees on the faces of people who view the Polages that offers the most reward.

Even jaded onlookers are surprised at what is revealed on the seemingly blank piece of plastic, she said.

"That's what I like about this medium, the effect it has on people," Comarow said. "It's magical."

The vibrant works have received "oohs" and "ahhs" from patrons at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, said Sande Maslow, director of art sales and rental and corporate art for the museum.

"The comment that is made most about Austine's work is simply that it is 'one of the coolest things I have ever seen,' " Maslow said. "I reply simply, 'Yes, it is.' "

Maslow first encountered Comarow's work in 1998 at the Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland.

Many artists have attempted to introduce science into art, Maslow said, but Comarow's work is the first he has seen complete the effort seamlessly.

"She has done it so well the viewer gets lost in her mystical scenes and forgets about the technical aspect of her work, which in many ways is the most important," he said.

The technology behind Comarow's self-created medium is staggering, Maslow said.

"The idea of Polage and the technique of it is mind blowing," Maslow said. "The time Austine has put into her craft is immense. In my opinion Austine's work is the perfect mesh of science and art."

Color revealed

Comarow, a 35-year Southern Nevada resident, came upon the medium she calls Polage in the late '60s, when a physicist friend showed her the array of vibrant colors that appeared on a clear cellophane sheet when placed between polarized filters.

"It was a whole other world of color," she said.

As an artist in college, Comarow was bored with drawing and art theory, she said.

"I enjoyed pushing paint around for a while. It was sensuous and pleasing," Comarow, 59, said. "Finished, it just sat there and the fun was over."

When she discovered polarization, she found she could indulge her love of drawing with an entirely new medium yet to be explored.

At first her work depicting lush landscapes was considered too mainstream for her high-tech medium, Comarow said. But she stuck with the images of nature she saw through the colors in the clear cellophane.

"I liked the idea of art meaning something," Comarow said, "and the fact that my pieces often tell a story was the most fun for me."

On display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art is a piece titled "The Path Beyond," which took nearly three months to complete.

The large Plexiglas piece shows a giant maple tree, made of inch-long pieces of cellophane placed at different angles to catch the varying shades of brown and green in the clear material. The tree leans over a brick path and white picket fence. As the polarized filter behind the Polage turns, the shades of the tree change, revealing the seasons.

"It's a comfort piece," Comarow said. "I can make people feel something in the way that the colors change, the mood changes. At least I hope so."

Her recent works also include a 16-inch piece, "Canyon Ghosts," commissioned by the Boulder City Museum.

In the piece two dam workers are revealed in dark colors descending the canyon beyond the hulking Hoover Dam. As the filter turns a blooming cactus and American Indian symbols are revealed in the rose-colored sands of a desert scene.

Comarow has offered a limited edition of 50 "Canyon Ghosts" Polages on sale at the museum.

"I wanted it to be a visual experience," Comarow said of her nod to Nevada history. "I like for people to feel something when they look at the work."

Future looks bright

Comarow's Polage art is used worldwide by Hawaiian sunglass company Maui Jim. Her pieces depicting surfers, sun and beach fun are placed in stores in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe and Australia.

The seemingly plain, circular pieces of Plexiglas come alive to anyone trying on sunglasses in the shop, said Chris Abbruzzese, vice president of marketing for Maui Jim.

"It's a self-seller," he said. "If the associate behind the counter is busy with another customer, they just tell the customer to look at the Polage and bingo, bango, bongo -- without anything being said they understand there is something dramatically different about these sunglasses."

Abbruzzese discovered Comarow's work a few years ago in an article published in 20/20 magazine, an optical trade- industry publication.

The use of art and sunglasses seemed an interesting marketing tool, he said.

"The neat thing about polarization is that the benefits to the wearer are so tangible and (Comarow's work) demonstrates that dramatically," he said. "It was a perfect marriage of science, art and culture."

For Comarow, the association with Maui Jim is interesting and the recognition in the art world is rewarding, but all that her craft is capable of is still unclear.

"There's still so much I want to try and do with (Polage)," Comarow said. "That's why I enjoy it so much, it's always changing. There's always something new to be revealed."

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