JOHAN COVA
AN EXPLORATION OF THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE THROUGH THE LENS OF WATER
Submergé: A Journey beneath the Surface
The Submergé Collection is a captivating exploration of the human experience as seen through the lens of water. Each piece in this collection portrays individuals immersed beneath the surface, observed from above the water, where the interplay of light and movement creates a dynamic and ethereal visual experience. As sunlight dances on the surface, the human forms within the water undergo a mesmerizing fragmentation, blurring the boundaries between realism and abstraction—a central theme that runs throughout all the pieces of this series.
The essence of this collection lies in its ability to evoke the human experience navigated through life. Each piece is inspired by events and experiences from the artist´s life, as well as those of people close to him, making the collection profoundly personal. Water, with its ability to cleanse, transform, and heal, becomes a powerful symbol in these works, representing the journey of life itself—a journey that is at once deeply intimate and universally relatable.
Submergé stands as a testament to the power of art to capture the ephemeral beauty of the journey of life and to transform them into something timeless. It is a reminder that beneath the surface of our daily lives lies a world of depth and complexity, waiting to be explored and understood.
Vacances
This artwork was born in solitude — a solo trip to France, taken alone by choice, at a time when solitude stopped feeling like something to escape. Created during the pandemic, it captures something most people spend their lives avoiding: the discomfort of being fully alone with yourself. The trip gave the entire collection its language — Submergé, a French word, born from a French shore. This piece set the tone for everything that came after: it is where the series began, and where its name was found.
Vacances
Acrylic on canvas / 45 x 30 inches
Splash
Splash was finished one week before the artist's sister passed away. He didn't know it would be the last thing he created about her while she was still alive. This piece exists because grief doesn't wait for art to be ready — sometimes art is the only thing fast enough to reach someone before they're gone.
Splash
Acrylic on canvas / 45 x 35 inches
Sportif
Sportif is about a demand no one ever asks permission to impose: fit the mold, or risk not belonging. It started early — the unspoken rule that being sporty, being fit, was the price of acceptance among peers, long before anyone understood why. That pressure didn't fade with age. Within the gay community, it sharpened, until physical appearance became its own currency, its own gatekeeper. This piece holds the exhaustion of a body forever being measured against a standard it never chose.
Sportif
Acrylic on canvas / 70 x 40 inches
Épuisé
Épuisé holds a confession the artist shouldn't have to make: leaving his corporate career didn't feel like freedom at first — it felt like failure. For years, he disappeared into a version of success that asked for everything and called it opportunity. This piece carries both sides of that truth at once — the exhaustion of those years, and the quiet, terrifying joy of finally choosing something else. Épuisé is what duality looks like when courage and collapse happen in the same breath.
Épuisé
Acrylic on canvas / 40 x 35 inches
L´enfant
L'enfant holds a memory most people wouldn't put on a canvas: a childhood shadowed by a brother's psychological and verbal abuse. And yet, alongside that shadow, there was so much else — long days at the beach, the freedom of a countryside and friendships that made him feel he belonged. This piece pushes back against the idea that pain and happiness can't occupy the same memory — it insists they not only can, but often do, and that darkness can only take up so much room when there is enough light to hold it back.
L´enfant
Acrylic on canvas / 51 x 40 inches
Mystique
Mystique is about a need older than any single religion: the search for something larger than ourselves. Faith, for the artist, was inherited before it was chosen — handed down in childhood, the way it is for most of us, long before anyone gets to decide for themselves. Years later, exploring a different spiritual path, he found the same symbols, the same promises, wearing different names. This piece sits inside that contradiction: belief systems built to unite us that so often end up dividing us instead.
Mystique
Acrylic on canvas / 51 x 40 inches
Passionnés
Passionnés refuses to romanticize love. The couple submerged in water could be seconds from an embrace — or from a fight. The ambiguity is deliberate; real intimacy isn't the fairytale version we're sold: it's choosing to stay present in the version that wounds as much as it heals, it's a coexistence of affection and frustration, admiration and doubt. It speaks to the unglamorous, beautiful act of staying — not out of obligation, but out of faith in shared growth, shared becoming.
Passionnés
Acrylic on canvas / 67 x 40 inches
Estigma
This piece is about the challenging life that people living with HIV face on a daily basis in a world where even what flows within us, what sustains us, and, tragically, what in this case becomes a reason for rejection. It speaks to the cruel irony that something as intrinsic and life-giving as our blood can also become a mark for discrimination.
Estigma
Acrylic on canvas / 40 x 35 inches
Femme
Femme is a tribute — not to an idea of womanhood, but to the women who carry its weight every day, often quietly, often unnoticed. It's for the strength it takes to keep becoming yourself while the world keeps deciding who you should be. This piece isn't about victimhood. It's a recognition of resilience — the kind that doesn't announce itself, but never stops.
Femme
Acrylic on canvas / 43 x 35 inches
Available Paintings
Femme
Acrylic on canvas / 43 x 35 inches
One-of-a-kind original
Passionnés
Acrylic on canvas / 66 x 40 inches
One-of-a-kind original
Mystique
Acrylic on canvas / 51 x 40 inches
One-of-a-kind original
Collectors
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Meet the Artist
Johan Cova, is a self-taught artist based in Mexico City, who embraces different technics, such as, acrylic, oil and pencil. Since a very young age, Cova knew he wanted to be an artist. He grew up with a love and passion for art, but decided to pursue other interests after leaving high school. By the time of pandemic (2020), Cova decided to quit his job, reconnect with drawing and painting, and begin to pursue his childhood dream of becoming an artist. In the same year, he relocated to Mexico City after leaving Buenos Aires, and had his first collective show in 2021.
Thanks to his presence on social media, Johan Cova has gained recognition for his hyperrealistic paintings and drawings and been fortunate to sell his artwork to collectors worldwide. While experimenting with a multitude of subject matters, Cova has always maintained a hyperrealistic style, attempting to create paintings that extend beyond what a photograph could ever capture focusing on the human figure interacting with liquids. "My favorite moment while painting is when a subject on my canvas merges with the surrounding liquid environment."
Currently, his main goal for his paintings is to use detail and color to create the mixed illusion of realism and abstraction on the canvas. More recently, Johan Cova has taken up a series of Medium-large scale paintings of human figures submerged in water. For any interest in collecting Cova's artwork, please email johan.cova@aol.com
CV
PRESS PUBLICATIONS:
2025: Visual Art Journal Magazine - https://visualartjournal.com/2025/06/29/johan-cova/
2021: Reforma Club Magazine - https://www.reforma.com/muestran-su-talento-en-identidades/ar2252119
EXHIBITIONS:
2026: Permanent Exhibition. Aura Copeland Gallery. Miami
2026: Collective Show. Centro Comercial Santa Fe. Peimbert Art Gallery. Mexico City
2025: Showroom. Holiday House Designs. The Hamptons. New York
2025: Collective Show. Les Couleurs Contemporary. Miami
2024: Collective Show. Paseo Interlomas Gallery by Art58. Mexico City
2023: Collective Show, Untitled Gallery. San Luis Potosí. Mexico
2021: "Identidades" - Collective Show, Sophart Gallery. Mexico City
2021: "Day of the Dead" - Collective Show, Oscar Román Gallery - San Miguel de Allende. Mexico
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