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 12: Winter 2024
Curated by Allan Bealy

Submissions by October 1, 2023

May We Cut In?

“Eroticism isn’t sex; its sexuality transformed by the human imagination. It’s the thoughts, dreams, anticipation, unruly impulses, and even painful memories which make up our vast erotic landscapes. It’s energized by our entire human experience, layered with early childhood experiences of touch, play, or trauma, which later become cornerstones of our erotic life.”

– Esther Perel

In our ability to imagine and explore sexuality and sensuality in vastly different ways, eroticism is a fundamental expression of human creativity. Manifestations of eroticism and sexual expression have existed since the very beginning of visual arts — from prehistoric cave drawings and petroglyphs to pop art. The exploration and celebration of the erotic has been a significant thread, one both welcomed and forbidden.

Collage, perhaps the most egalitarian of artistic forms, has long been a significant erotic voice in the arts. The intimate touch inherent to working with paper in itself can invoke a sensual response. Texture, color, smell and the repurposing of imagery can lead to a subtle or obvious exploration of the erotic. The implied and the suggested can be as stimulating as the overt.

For this issue of Cut Me Up, we ask you to consider what eroticism means to you. What memories and experiences make up your own erotic landscape? How do you express the freedom and joy of your own sexuality?

It’s time to holler a multicultural, pan-sexual, aspirational hallelujah to the joy of sex!

– Allan Bealy, Visual Artist

To submit artwork responses:

  • Embrace the transformative power of collage to manifest your perfect erotic vision!

  • Celebrate the erotic through expressions of the diversity of personal gender identities and sexual orientations.

  • Consider addressing manifestations of sex and sexuality in popular media that need to be changed.

  • Find inspiration in erotic works from the history of collage, including the lyrical paper cut-outs of Pierre Matisse, postwar political collages of Hannah Hoch, the collages of sex educator Zoe Ligon, the playful erotic cutups of Flore Kunst and James Gallagher’s lively studies of the posed body.

  • For this issue of Cut Me Up, eroticism may not include denigrating or exploitative imagery, or overt pornography.

  • All eligible submissions must incorporate some portion or portions of Cut Me Up: Issue 11.

  • Artwork responses must be vertically oriented.

  • Submissions must be sized at 10.25 x 8.25".

  • Scan submissions at 600dpi or photograph with a professional- grade digital SLR camera at the highest resolution setting, minimum resolution of 300dpi.

  • Submissions must be in .TIF format with a minimum native resolution of 300dpi (600dpi preferred).

  • Label artwork file: last name_first name_title.tif

  • In the email body, please include artwork information: your name, title of work, date, materials used, dimensions

  • Send submissions to: cutmeupmagazine@gmail.com

Issue 12 Curator Allan Bealy

Allan Bealy is a Canadian visual artist, graphic designer and art director living in Brooklyn. His collage book Tokens has recently been published by Redfox Press in Ireland. His practice now focuses exclusively on collage.

Instagram: @allan.bealy


Cut Me Up Issue 12 will be published on January 1, 2024