Yeah that's what I was also explaining above that you can use same things in your artwork but there's no possibility that the two artwork would be identical unless you try to copy someone's else artwork to present your entry.This is just a competition and try to be creative and submit whatever you have in mind and no need to be high profile artist to participate in these contest.
There could be "similar" stuff, like the same exact image, painted by two different people for example, we have that with fruit bowls all over the world, people draw that to learn about light and many other stuff basically to cut it short. That means there are probably a million fruit bowls, doesn't mean that people copied each other, they just wanted to paint the same thing, but each has different style and talent level, if I draw it, or paint it, it will certainly be the ugliest thing ever, but if some great painter did, it would look like so real that you want to take a bite. So, if it's like that, I think it's fine, but if it's literally same, then it's a no no.
That’s not the case here though, we just have a topic and that’s about it, and this is why we wouldn't be getting the same stuff, how could you get the same stuff from a topic. It’s not like "paint a fruit bowl" type of situation here, it’s like "paint something regarding fruits" for example, would everyone paint a bowl of it in that case? Maybe one or two but I doubt it would be too many.
Hence, why I believe that if there is an "exact" or close thing, then it's going to raise some suspicion. This of course results with people coming in with their OG art work, and that usually ends up with something much better for the team, because they have plenty of OG art under their files to use whenever they want to.