John McEwen was born in Toronto, in 1945. He was initially concerned with conceptual art, and developed his thoughts on the practise of art before he turned to the traditional materials of sculpture. This happened when he acquired a forge as a workshop.He is a sculptor known for his significant production of public art, and as early as 1988, the Southern Alberta Art Gallery gave him a retrospective for this particular activity.

Montrealers known him mainly for his participation in the special exhibition Aurora borealis, in 1985, and also for his sculpture installation located on President Kennedy Avenue near Place des arts. Rather than speaking about the dichotomy of things, McEwen's hieratic animals bridge opposites such as nature and culture, past and present, prose and poetry, popular art and fine art, things of the spirit and those of the heart, materials and intuition and so on.