Ryan David McCourt was born in Edmonton in 1975. The youngest of Ken and Sheelagh McCourt’s five children, he was educated at Patricia Heights Elementary School, Hillcrest Junior High School, and Jasper Place High School. McCourt completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1997, and his Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture in 1999, at the University of Alberta, as a student of Peter Hide, in Edmonton’s modernist tradition of welded sculpture.
In 2000, McCourt mounted his first post-university solo exhibition, and received the Helen Collinson Memorial Award for his artwork. McCourt was the Artistic Coordinator for The Works Art Expo 2001 in Edmonton. In 2002, McCourt founded the North Edmonton Sculpture Workshop, a cooperative shared-studio project focused on facilitating the creation and promotion of contemporary sculpture. The NESW produced the “Big Things” outdoor sculpture series at the Royal Alberta Museum from 2002 to 2006.
In 2003, McCourt was an instructor of Visual Fundamentals at the University of Alberta. In 2004, alongside Alberta Premier Ralph Klein, McCourt unveiled a monumental, 18-foot-tall commissioned sculpture entitled A Modern Outlook, at 18550-118A Avenue in Edmonton. In 2005, McCourt organized the Alberta Centennial Sculpture Exhibition at the Royal Alberta Museum, and showed his sculptures for the first time in the United States, at the newly opened Sculpturesite Gallery in downtown San Francisco, near the SFMOMA.
In 2006, McCourt was the first artist invited to display sculpture for one year outside Edmonton’s Shaw Conference Centre. McCourt’s solo exhibition, Will and Representation, was an installation of four large sculptures based on Ganesha, a deity from Hindu mythology. Ten months into the exhibition, then-Mayor of Edmonton Stephen Mandel ordered the works removed after reportedly receiving a 700-name petition complaining of the sculptures’ “disrespectful” nudity.
In 2008, McCourt opened Common Sense, a gallery space at 10546 – 115 street in downtown Edmonton. With a mandate to give 100% of proceeds from art sales to exhibiting artists, Common Sense does not fit the mold of either a commercial gallery or a traditional artist run centre. According to art writer Amy Fung, “Common Sense is not actually an artist-run centre in any official sense, but a space run by artists in the old-fashioned sense…. essentially an artist’s wet dream in our space-deprived city.” McCourt won the Connect2Edmonton “Column of the Year” award for his writing on the visual arts in Edmonton, and that same year, married fellow Edmonton artist Nola Cassady.
In 2009, McCourt was awarded First Prize in the headdress category of the Wearable Art Awards in Port Moody, British Columbia for The Helmet of Laocoön. In 2010, he and his wife welcomed the birth of their daughter. In 2011, McCourt was named one of Edmonton’s “Top 40 Under 40” by Avenue Edmonton for his support of local artists and his encouragement of critical discourse. In 2012, McCourt exhibited art at Calgary’s Leighton Centre. In 2013, McCourt’s sculpture “The Equilibrist” was included in the Edmonton Contemporary Artists’ Society’s 20th annual exhibition.
In 2014, McCourt’s travels to view art included San Francisco, New York City, and most notably, the Clement Greenberg Collection in Portland. In 2015, McCourt’s art was shown in “Brain Storms,” a survey exhibition of selected University of Alberta alumni. In 2016, McCourt’s award winning Edmontonian Flag was presented to Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson by Confederacy of Treaty Six First Nations Grand Chief Randy Ermineskin, “as a symbol of their commitment to collaboration, respectful dialogue and exploring shared opportunities” and “to symbolize a new dawn in Nation-to-Nation relationship building.”
In 2017, Edmonton City Council considered adopting McCourt’s “Edmontonian Flag” as the new official city flag of Edmonton; McCourt exhibited new brass sculptures in a solo exhibition at Common Sense; and for the first time, publicly exhibited a number of ambigram designs in a group show at Bleeding Heart Art Space. McCourt was honoured to become a Hambidge Fellow after undertaking a four-week residency at the Hambidge Centre for Creative Arts and Sciences in Georgia, USA.
In 2018, McCourt exhibited the sculptures and photographs he had produced in Georgia in an exhibition entitled “Hambidge Suite” at Common Sense. In March, McCourt undertook his second artist residency, at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig, Newbliss, County Monaghan, Ireland, the country of his ancestors for countless centuries.
In 2019, The Local Cannabist, Edmonton’s premiere independent cannabis retailer, opened to the public featuring a comprehensive brand identity designed by Ryan McCourt. That same year, he had his first solo exhibition of sculptures in Calgary. In 2020, McCourt was invited to participate in an artists’ residency in Rajasthan, India.
McCourt still lives and works in Edmonton, where he continues to occupy himself with a diverse range of creative projects during the worldwide Coronavirus pandemic.
