Toronto’s landscape is synonymous with ravines and sky-grasping condo towers juxtaposed against Victorian red-brick townhouses. Over the past two decades, Toronto artist John McEwen’s outdoor commissions — steel pieces inspired by nature and local lore — have become intrinsic to the city’s scenery. McEwen has brought a bear to life above Spadina; he’s pulled the lake further into the city by erecting a canoe on the Queensway and he’s filled a Rosedale park with northern Ontario wildlife. We caught up with him before his biennial Olga Korper Gallery show. Here’s what we learned.
You have a number of public installations in Toronto. Is there one particular work that you have a special attachment to?
There are two works: Canoe and Calipers and the Ballad of Ice and Water. They exist opposite each other at Queensway and Windemere and create a gateway to Lake Ontario.
What inspired those two commissions?
The Canoe and Callipers is about the short history of the area. I have multiple interests in the canoe, from its status as a gift from the First Nations to all who came after, to the way one views the landscape from within and not above. The Ballad of Ice and Water was inspired by Lake Iroquois and the glaciers that once covered Toronto.
Who are your current influences?
My current influences tend to come from reading. I am currently part of a touring exhibition called Animal, curated by Corinna Ghaznavi. One of my works in the exhibition was influenced by Mark Rowlands’ book The Philosopher and the Wolf. It is one of my rare pieces that uses neon — there is something about the ephemeral contrast of neon against the gravity of steel.
What is your primary medium?
It’s steel followed by bronze. For the longest time my use of steel plates in the form of animal silhouettes anchored my view that the imaginative importance of animals lay in their being treated as completely separate from us. I now see a common fragility to all life.
How have your works changed in relation to this epiphany?
For some time now I’ve constructed all kinds of vessels from small laser-cut stars [instead of large steel sheets]. These newer works communicate an impending sense of dispersal. In my upcoming Olga Korper show there will be an over-sized skull composed of four-inch stars, which I refer to as a loose leaf skull.
What else will you be exhibiting at Olga Korper?
A number of steel animals including a dolphin and a twice life-sized Doberman, all made with small one-inch stars. There will also probably be a teddy bear composed of large stars, but it hasn’t been finished, so I can’t tell you if it’ll be a success or not.
What are you currently working on?
One of my recent interests has taken the form of a limited edition book called Public Thoughts. I decided to look at my public art in the broadest possible way. I have considered everything from the most secluded gardens to the most public of spaces. In all cases the common factor is simply the outside of night and day.
What have you learned from your public commissions?
In the larger context, in the best of public art the artist and spectator become something new, a third party.
John McEwen’s 2011 Olga Korper Gallery exhibit will be showing from Aug. 27 till Sept. 24. The touring exhibition Animal will be at the Robert Mclaughlin Art Gallery in Oshawa from March 12 to May 6, 2012