Joane Cardinal-Schubert, award-winning Kainaiwa (Blood) artist, was born in 1942 in Red Deer, Alberta. She attended the Alberta College of Art in the 1960s, studying, painting, printmaking, and multi-media, and in 1977, she graduated from the University of Calgary with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. Cardinal-Schubert worked as assistant curator at the University of Calgary Art Gallery in 1978, and the Nickle Arts Museum, Calgary, Alberta, from 1979 to 1985.
Cardinal-Schubert's painting and installation practice is prominent for addressing important issues related to her Indigenous ancestry, culture, and the condemnation of the imposition of Euro-American religious, educational, and governmental systems, and oppression upon Indigenous people. She drew upon autobiographical references, her Kainai ancestry, and the history of Western Colonialism in a career that spanned over four decades. She worked as a curator, an artist, an activist, a lecturer, a mentor, and a director of video and Indigenous theatre. In 1985, she was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, officially becoming a member in 1986, the fourth female artist ever to be accepted. Her writing was published internationally in art magazines, catalogues, and books, and she was subject to numerous accolades, including the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal in 2005.
In 2009, Joane Cardinal-Schubert passed away after a lengthy and private battle with cancer. In 2017, the Nickle Arts Museum staged The Writing on The Wall, a major retrospective of her work, and in 2018, Joane Cardinal-Schubert Highschool opened in Southeast Calgary, named in her honour.