‘I felt forced to stab the knife through the canvas’: The artist Edita Schubert used her surgical blade like other artists wield a brush.

Edita Schubert lived a double life. For more than three decades, the esteemed Croatian creator held a position at the Institute of Anatomy at the medical school of the University of Zagreb, precisely illustrating human anatomical specimens for textbooks for surgeons. In her private atelier, she produced art that eluded all labels – frequently employing the identical instruments.

“She created these highly accurate, technical drawings which were used in medical textbooks,” says a director of a current show of Schubert’s work. “She was deeply immersed in that work … She was totally unfazed about being in dissections.” Her anatomical drawings, observes a exhibition curator, are still featured in manuals for surgical trainees in Croatia today.

The Bleeding of Two Worlds

Having two professional lives was not uncommon for Yugoslav artists, who seldom could rely on art sales. But the way these two worlds bled into each other was. The surgical blades for precise cuts on bodies were transformed into tools for cutting fabric. Adhesive tape intended for bandages held her perforated artworks together. The test tubes typically reserved for laboratory samples evolved into receptacles for her personal history.

A Frustration That Cut Deep

During the beginning of the 1970s, Schubert was still creating within the limits of classic art. She crafted precise, ultra-realistic arrangements in oil and acrylic of confectionery and condiment containers. However, discontent had been growing since her academy years. While studying at the fine arts academy in Zagreb, the curriculum mandated life drawing. “I was compelled to stab the knife through the fabric, it simply got on my nerves, that stretched surface I was forced to communicate upon,” she once explained to a scholar, among the rare individuals she spoke with. “I stabbed the knife into the canvas instead of the brush.”

Where Anatomical Practice Meets Creation

That year, this desire became a concrete action. The artist created eleven sizable paintings. All were rendered in a uniform blue hue before taking a medical scalpel and making hundreds of deliberate, precise cuts. She then folded back the sliced fabric to expose the underside, creating works she documented with forensic precision. She timestamped each to emphasize their nature as events. In a photographic series from that year, titled Self-Portrait Through a Sliced Painting, she inserted her features, hair, and digits through the openings, transforming her physical self into creative matter.

“Indeed, my entire oeuvre carries a sense of dissection … dissection akin to a life study,” Schubert answered regarding the works' significance. For a close friend and scholar, this statement was illuminating – a hint from a creator who seldom offered commentary.

A Dual Existence, Inextricably Linked

Croatian critics have tended to treat Schubert’s two lives as entirely separate: the pioneering creator in one sphere, the medical illustrator who paid the bills on the other. “My opinion since then has been that her dual selves were intimately linked,” notes a close friend. “One cannot be employed for three decades in an anatomy department from early morning to mid-afternoon and not be influenced by what you see there.”

Biological Inspirations Beneath the Surface

The revelatory nature of a present showcase is how it traces these medical undercurrents through works that, at first glance, seem entirely abstract. Around 1985, she made a collection of angular works – geometric shapes, subsequently labeled. Contemporary critics categorized them under the trendy neo-geo label. However, the reality was uncovered much later, while examining her personal papers.

“I inquired, how are these shapes created?” recalls a friend. “She explained simply: they represent a human face.” The distinctive hues – known among associates as her personal red and blue – matched the precise colors employed to depict cervical arteries in medical texts for a surgical anatomy textbook utilized in medical faculties across Europe. “I realised that those two colours appeared at the same time,” the explanation continues. The angular paintings were actually abstracted human forms – painted while she worked on anatomical illustrations by day.

A Turn Towards the Organic

In the late 70s and early 80s, the artist's work shifted direction again. She initiated works using wood lashed with straps. She arranged collections of bone, petals, spices and ash on floors. When asked why she’d shifted to such organic materials, the artist stated that contemporary art had “dried up intellectually”. She felt an urge to break boundaries – to engage with truly ephemeral substances as a response to art that had metaphorically withered.

A 1979 piece entitled 100 Roses, saw her strip a hundred roses of their petals. She braided the stems into round arrangements positioning the floral remnants in the center. When observed in a curatorial context, the piece retained its potency – the leaves and petals now completely dried out yet astonishingly whole. “The scent of roses persists,” a commentator notes. “The hue has endured.”

An Elusive Creative Force

“My aim is to remain enigmatic, to conceal my process,” the artist shared in late-life discussions. Secrecy was her strategy. On occasion, she displayed counterfeit pieces while hiding originals under her bed. She destroyed certain drawings, leaving only signed photocopies in their place. Even with showings at prestigious exhibitions and being celebrated as a pioneering figure, she conducted hardly any media talks and her work remained largely unknown outside her region. A present retrospective marks her first significant external showcase.

Addressing the Trauma of Battle

Then came the 1990s, and the Yugoslav Wars. War came to her city. The artist answered with a group of mixed-media works. She glued journalistic imagery and type onto surfaces. She duplicated and expanded them. Subsequently, she overpainted all elements – dark stripes akin to product codes. {Geometric forms obscured the images beneath|Angular shapes hid the pictures below|