SUBMISSIONS OPEN: JULY 6TH – JULY 27TH

       "When old age shall this generation waste, 
           Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
 Than ours, a friend to man, to whom say'st
          'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
     Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
- John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn. 

Imagine yourself wandering the rooms of a vast museum, each framed wall containing a thousand tiny, trapped moments - of beauty, of horror. Of birth; of death. Each one practising the ability to trap time in its brushstrokes, immortalising moments through clay that is moulded in a creator's hands. Gazing upon them you can find trees that may never shed, music that may never end. Each an everlasting and individual beauty. Each maker a historian, building endless realities for you to immerse yourself in. 

Gradually, you begin to understand the immense comfort that can be found in every crevice of the curved marble, or wood, or ceramic. Temporarily, you are lifted above yourself, more than just a viewer in a gallery - you find yourself freed from human thought by the art's whispering. A whisper that promises something can be made eternal. You feel telepathic almost, communicating across the grave, exploring worlds that are no longer here. Again, the whispers: abandon reality, let yourself live in these moments. Let them be true. Let us be immortal once more through your gaze. 

And you can see them now: muse and artist in a sunlit room. Intricately the inventor works, imitating their lover's likeness, perfecting their exact curves - just so they can capture how the two of them exist in this exact moment. So their full-coloured muse will always be just this beautiful and the two of them just as in love. In art, they will always have something to look forward to, unburdened by the weight of human expectation. What is left to the imagination is even better than reality because there are no limitations to its capacity.

But what about all the desires, hopes and dreams they may never experience or moreover, fulfil? Isn't entrapment a punishment, immortality a discipline? What about Prometheus on the rock, sentenced to a life of eternal suffering, his flesh forever feeding hungry birds? He was a creator once too, moulded life with those exact hands - the ones that are now chained to the ground. Is a painted-in Daphne forever chased by the eager Apollo, unable to reach safety? Does her escape really matter if the painting traps her anyway?