Our software company has about 30+ graphic items that need to have
created by a graphic artist skilled in bitmap & vector images with a
tiny amount of flash as well.  We want to take bids on the work and
have artist submit one sample to show what they are capable of.  I
know of places like rentacoder.com where you can put programming work
up for bid, is there anything that exists like this for artist?

Where are some good places to find artist who might be interested in
bidding on this work?  What other solutions are there for hiring
graphic artist on a contract basis?

try http://www.guru.com/

http://www.getafreelancer.com/