General Submission Guidelines:

Each published issue features a curatorial call for the next issue by a guest curator, asking artists to consider specific concepts and approaches to collage. Submitting artists always use the previous issue of Cut Me Up as raw material to cut up and transform, in response to the curatorial call.

Call for Issue 17: Summer 2026
Curated by Craig Deepen Auge

Deadline for submissions: April 1, 2026

Razzle Dazzle

Razzle Dazzle invites artists to explore pattern in all its contradictions—as pure surface design or containing deeper symbolism, as strategy or accessory, as structure or shimmer. Patterns can protect and reveal, soothe and unsettle, clarify and confuse. Pattern may emerge from the smallest gesture or mark which then gathers meaning through repetition, a gentle rhythm that steadies, or builds until it becomes vibration, distortion, blur.

Inspired in part by the disorienting, fractured geometries of dazzle camouflage and the playful persistence of the polka dot in its endless variations, this call reflects on how scale and proximity transform what we see. A single form becomes a field, simplicity folds into complexity, perception wavers between order and overwhelm.

Investigate pattern as lexicon, meditation, or mask. What comfort and meaning may be discovered within multiplicity and visual cadence?

Consider:

  • Pattern emerging from repetition of minimalist forms; rhythm; echo

  • Maximalist, all-over approach to pattern; atmospheric pattern; noise

  • Decorative patterns; natural, conceptual, cultural, or emotional patterns

  • Spiritual or cosmic patterns

  • Pattern as code or shorthand; diagrammatic strategies

  • The hypnotic potential of pattern, how it can distract or define

  • Combining multiple patterns; mining from previous Cut Me Up issues and elsewhere

– Craig Auge, Artist & Curator

All eligible submissions must:

  • Respond to and incorporate some portion of Cut Me Up Issue 16: Ritual & Collage.

  • Orientation: Artwork must be vertical (portrait).

  • Final image size: Files should be 10.25" high x 8.25" wide. (The final printed area/trim size is 10" x 8".)

  • Resolution: 600 dpi.

  • Flatbed scan: (preferred): Scan to .TIF format.

  • Photograph: Use a digital SLR camera at the highest resolution and largest image size settings (600 dpi preferred; 300 dpi minimum).

  • Be limited to a maximum of three (3) submissions per artist

Submissions are free. Optional contributions to support the continuation of Cut Me Up can be made after submission.

Send submissions via the form linked here: submissionform

Issue 17 Curator Craig Deepen Auge

Craig Auge is a multidisciplinary artist and curator whose art toggles abstract collage and ephemeral salvage assemblage. Works are improvisational, intuitive, and responsive, emphasizing process over product, regenerating materials and entire artworks. He has exhibited throughout the U.S. and been featured in many publications including Cut Me Up, The Hand Magazine, and New American Paintings.

Auge has independently curated and organized artists since the late 1990s. He has worked professionally supporting artists with disabilities, developing exhibition programming at public libraries, co-directing artist-run nonprofits, and operating a roaming and online curatorial project called Lodger. He is based in Kansas City, Missouri.

Instagram: @craigdeppenauge
Web: craigdeppenauge.com

Cut Me Up Issue 17 will be published on July 1, 2026