‘I was compelled to drive the blade into the canvas’: The artist Edita Schubert used her surgical blade like creatives handle a paintbrush.

Edita Schubert lived a double life. For more than three decades, the artist from Croatia worked at the Department of Anatomy at the University of Zagreb’s medical faculty, carefully sketching human anatomical specimens for surgical textbooks. Within her artistic workspace, she produced art that eluded all labels – often using the very same tools.

“Her work involved crafting these meticulous, technical diagrams which were used in surgical handbooks,” explains a director of a current show of Schubert’s work. “She was right in the middle of that practice … She was entirely comfortable in the dissection room.” These detailed anatomical studies, observes a exhibition curator, are still published in handbooks for anatomy students currently in Croatia.

The Intermingling of Dual Vocations

Having two professional lives was not uncommon for creatives in the former Yugoslavia, who rarely had access to a commercial art market. Yet, the fusion of these two domains was distinctive. The medical knives for anatomical dissection became instruments for slicing canvas. Adhesive tape intended for bandages secured her sliced creations. Laboratory tubes commonly used for samples became vessels for her autobiography.

A Frustration That Cut Deep

At the start of the seventies, Schubert was still creating within the limits of classic art. She crafted precise, ultra-realistic arrangements in acrylic and oil paints of confectionery and condiment containers. Yet, irritation had been festering since her training. During her time at the Zagreb art school, she’d been forced to paint nudes. “I needed to drive the blade into the painting, it genuinely irritated me, that taut surface on which I had to talk about something,” she later told an art historian, among the rare individuals she spoke with. “I stabbed the knife into the canvas instead of the brush.”

The Artistic Performance of Cutting

In 1977, that urge took literal form. The artist created eleven sizable paintings. All were rendered in a uniform blue hue prior to picking up a surgical blade and executing numerous intentional, accurate incisions. Afterwards, she peeled back the severed canvas to reveal its reverse, fashioning artworks catalogued with scientific detail. She dated each one to underscore that they were actions. In one 1977 series of photographs, called Self-Portrait With a Perforated Work, she pressed her visage, locks, and hands into the cuts, transforming her physical self into creative matter.

“Yes, all my art has a character of dissection … anatomical analysis similar to figure drawing,” Schubert answered regarding the works' significance. For an intimate confidant and researcher, this was a revelation – a clue from an artist who rarely explained herself.

Two Lives, Deeply Connected

Art commentators in Croatia often viewed her twin professions as wholly divided: the pioneering creator in one sphere, the anatomical artist supporting herself separately. “My opinion since then has been that these two identities were profoundly intertwined,” notes a close friend. “One cannot be employed for three decades in an anatomy department daily for hours on end without being affected by the surroundings.”

Medical Undercurrents in Abstract Forms

The revelatory nature of a present showcase is the way it follows these anatomical influences through works that, at first glance, seem entirely abstract. In the mid-1980s, the artist created a group of shaped canvases – trapeziums, as they came to be known. Art writers grouped them with the popular geometric abstraction trend. But the truth was discovered only years later, when cataloguing Schubert’s estate.

“I inquired, how are these shapes created?” remembers a scholar. “And she told me, it’s very simple, it’s a human face.” The signature tones – known among associates as her personal red and blue – were identical tints employed to depict cervical arteries in medical texts for a surgical anatomy textbook utilized in medical faculties across Europe. “It became clear those hues emerged concurrently,” the narrative adds. The shaped canvases were essentially distilled anatomical studies – executed alongside her daily technical illustration work.

Embracing Ephemeral Elements

During the transition into the 1980s, the artist's work shifted direction again. She started making assemblages from twigs secured with hide. She positioned gatherings of osseous material, floral remains, seasonings and cinders. Inquired regarding the change to ephemeral components, she expressed that the art world had become “barren theoretically”. She felt an urge to break boundaries – to utilize genuinely perishable matter in reaction to a creatively arid landscape.

A 1979 piece entitled 100 Roses, saw her strip a hundred roses of their petals. She wove the stems into circles on the ground placing the foliage and petals within. Upon being viewed while organizing a show, the piece retained its potency – the leaves and petals now completely dried out though wonderfully undamaged. “The scent of roses persists,” one observer marvels. “The hue has endured.”

An Elusive Creative Force

“I always want to be mysterious, not to reveal what I’m doing,” the artist shared in late-life discussions. Secrecy was her strategy. She would sometimes exhibit fake works while hiding originals under her bed. She eliminated select sketches, leaving only signed photocopies in their place. Despite exhibiting at major international biennales and gaining recognition as a trailblazer, she granted virtually no press access and her work remained largely unknown outside her region. A current museum exhibition is her first major solo show outside her homeland.

Addressing the Trauma of Battle

Then came the 1990s, and the Yugoslav Wars. Hostilities impacted the capital directly. Schubert responded with a series of collages. She glued journalistic imagery and type onto surfaces. She photocopied and enlarged them. Subsequently, she overpainted all elements – rectangular forms reminiscent of scanning lines. {Geometric forms obscured the images beneath|Angular shapes hid the pictures below|