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August 28th, 2020 
Awake Goy In a series of daring paintings, Ana Light, a young Jewish artist from California, captures the coronavirus zeitgeist with her four portrayals of semi-nude young women engaged in behaviors unmistakably identifiable with the COVID-19 pandemic, laying bare the anxiety and ennui of a generation unsure of its future.
Light, 20, created the works this summer in her garage studio at her family’s home in Irvine, California. Unable to return to the University of California at Berkeley campus after spring break, she had completed her freshman year online.
Early in the lockdown Light made collages that were more optimistic, reflecting an initial hope that the pandemic would not last too long. Her family was also glad to be together and enjoying activities that were previously crowded out by their usual busy lives.
As prolonged social distancing took an emotional toll, and millions of people took to the streets of American cities to protest police brutality and the killing of George Floyd, Light’s subject matter turned more urgent. She wanted to make a stronger statement with her art.
‘My Body My Choice’ by Ana Light (Courtesy of artist)
“It’s been hard because different people are responding differently to the pandemic. Our family is taking it seriously, especially since one of us has a preexisting health issue. It’s difficult and anxiety-provoking when other people don’t take it seriously,” Light said.
The politicization of mask-wearing spurred Light to paint the first of the four paintings. Titled, “My Body My Choice,” it depicts a naked young woman taking a selfie with a smartphone. Her legs are splayed and her mouth, breasts and vagina are covered with blue disposable surgical masks. It is the most provocative of the four paintings in the series.
“How did our country make a thin piece of cloth political? Just curious,” Light posted alongside an image of the painting on her Instagram account.
‘Then What Does Freedom Look Like?’ by Ana Light (Courtesy of artist)
“My Body My Choice” is a self-portrait. The image is tight, with parts of Light’s legs and feet beyond the frame.
“I gave this image and the others a claustrophobic feel. It’s about the collective experience of humanity right now. We are all going through the pandemic, but we are all isolated from one another at the same time. Illness may be individual, but the pandemic is global and there is a shared hopelessness and loss of control,” the artist said.
Light, who painted this first work in early August, said she was deliberate in her provocation.
“I wanted to eroticize the mask in order to call attention to what’s going on,” she said.
‘My Office Space’ by Ana Light (Courtesy of artist)
Her post of the painting on TikTok was removed due to its nudity. However, based on the positive feedback she received on social media, she decided to create a series expressing the experiences of young adults during the COVID crisis. She asked some of her friends to pose for more paintings, and three agreed.
Light asked them to take photographs of themselves in states of undress engaged in what she termed “their quarantine obsession,” meaning activities that have occupied their time while in lockdown.
Light painted the three works simultaneously over the next two weeks. In “Then What Does Freedom Look Like,” we see a young woman sewing a cloth mask on a sewing machine and nonchalantly eating an apple. “My Office Space” features a woman pouring a cup of coffee, with a bottle of booze visible in the background. Finally, “I’m Late to My Zoom Call” shows a young woman bent over doing a jigsaw puzzle while sitting on the toilet.
‘I’m Late to My Zoom Call’ by Ana Light. (Courtesy of artist)
“It’s easy to capture people’s attention when you are being risqué,” Light said about the paintings, which show a lot of skin (though she says she also enjoys the additional technical challenges in painting them).
It remains to be seen whether viewers will actually notice that all four models are wearing masks — and properly, with both nose and mouth covered.
For those more comfortable with paintings featuring clothed people, there is also “Rest in Power,” inspired by the many Black Lives Matter protests Light participated in this summer. She modeled the painting on a photograph she saw in the media.
The daughter of an American-born Conservative rabbi father and German-born artist and art historian mother, Light started doing art as a young teenager when the family (Light has two younger brothers) moved from Seattle to Irvine in 2013. Laid up after a sports injury, Light realized for the first time — thanks to an excellent teacher at her Jewish day school — that art can have meaning and resonance.
Ana Light picking tomatoes at Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu, Israel in 2019. (Courtesy)
In high school, Light completed an intensive Advanced Placement art course, and she took an art class at Berkeley during her first semester last fall. Between high school and college, she took a gap year — volunteering with disabled adults in Berlin for the first half, and then volunteering and learning Hebrew at Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu in northern Israel.
Classes at Berkeley will be online only this fall, but Light has decided to return to Northern California nonetheless. She hopes to regain some of the independence she began to enjoy before the campus was shut down due to the coronavirus.
“It’s important for me socially, and it’ll be a change of scenery,” she said.
Light said she perceives a big cultural shift happening. The world is experiencing a trauma she expects will have an immense effect on how we live our lives.
“Can we ever go back to touching? Will the internet continue to be everything?” she wondered anxiously.
Light plans to bring her art supplies with her when she soon returns to Berkeley, and has ideas for the next pieces she would like to make as part of her COVID series. She has much more to say.
“Art serves as a wake-up call. It can shake you up,” she said.
Ana Light’s COVID series and other art is available for sale at her Etsy shop.
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