Culver City Artist Paal Anand Selected for the 9th Chianciano Biennale in Tuscany

His monochrome myth work Heracles Hurls Lichas joins an international, juried selection of contemporary artists at the medieval galleries of Chianciano Terme

CULVER CITY, CA, UNITED STATES, June 29, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Conceptual artist and Culver City Arts Foundation Vice-Chair Paal Anand has been selected by international jury for the 9th Chianciano Biennale, one of Italy’s most established contemporary-art exhibitions, held this summer in the historic Tuscan town of Chianciano Terme. His work Heracles Hurls Lichas, a large-format monochrome carbon print from his ongoing Mythiq series, will be shown alongside the work of some 200 artists from around the world across the Chianciano Art Museum and thirteen historic galleries in the town’s medieval centre, on view 15–29 August 2026.

ABOUT THE WORK

Heracles Hurls Lichas reimagines one of the most violent episodes in Greek myth: the dying Heracles, maddened by the poison of the tunic of Nessus' blood, seizing his herald Lichas and casting him into the sea. Working in the high-contrast monochrome that defines his Mythiq series, Anand transcribes the frozen anguish of classical marble into living flesh — two figures locked in the terrible physics of the moment: muscle and motion and openmouthed terror, caught at the instant of release. The work continues Anand’s central project — a surrealist reimagining of classical mythology that draws deliberately on the Western figurative tradition of sculpted musculature, theatrical chiaroscuro, and the held pose elevated to monument, while insisting that the body is not ornament but protagonist. Heracles Hurls Lichas has been exhibited internationally, including at the Arte Laguna Prize 20th Anniversary Exhibition in Shanghai. “Where sculpture freezes the moment of flight, I wanted the work to make it unbearable and immediate,” said Anand. “These myths still describe us. The work asks whether we have truly moved past the stories that shaped us — or whether we remain, always, both Heracles and Lichas: the hand that casts out, and the body suspended midair.”

ABOUT THE CHIANCIANO BIENNALE

CHIANCIANO BIENNALE 2026 Now in its ninth edition, the Chianciano Biennale is an international competition and curated exhibition organized by London’s Gagliardi Gallery and staged across the Museo d’Arte di Chianciano — with roughly 3,000 square meters of gallery space — and thirteen restored galleries throughout the town’s medieval centre. Open to living artists worldwide with no restriction on theme, medium, or style, it selects its roster purely on artistic merit through a jury of international curators and art professionals; the 2024 edition drew some 190 artists from across Europe, Asia, the Americas, Africa, and Oceania. Admission is free to the public, and every selected artist is featured in a hardback exhibition catalogue. The Biennale confers a series of awards — a €2,500 prize for the best work overall, with €1,000 category prizes for painting, sculpture and installation, work on paper, and digital and photographic work — and extends selected participants the opportunity for editorial features in the Tuscany pages of La Repubblica, one of Italy’s most respected newspapers. Award winners also receive automatic selection for the London Art Biennale 2027.

ABOUT PAAL ANAND

Paal Anand is a Canadian-born conceptual artist based in Culver City, California, working across surrealist photography, holographic and immersive installation, and fine-art printmaking. After more than two decades as a Hollywood visual-effects artist, with credits including Hellboy and the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, and early research and development work on the software that became Autodesk Maya, he turned to a full-time studio practice. His ongoing series include Mythiq, a surrealist reimagining of classical mythology; Priceless Habitats, executed in platinum and palladium leaf on vellum; and Piezography Studies in seven-shade carbon-pigment monochrome. A Graphis Master with fifteen Graphis Gold Photography Awards, Anand is an Arte Laguna World Hall of Fame inductee, the 2026 Arte Laguna Prize USA Ambassador, and Fondazione Effetto Arte’s Artist of the Year for 2025. His holographic installation The Ward That Never Closed, created with the veterans’ nonprofit Veterans Stand Together for the Hospital of Emotions exhibition in Los Angeles, was the subject of a May 2026 feature in the Los Angeles Times. He serves as Vice-Chair of the Culver City Arts Foundation and holds a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

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