Paal Anand Wins 2nd at Italy’s 9th Chianciano Biennale, Sets Fall Venice & Barcelona Shows

California, USA, October 14th, 2026, FinanceWire

Culver City conceptual artist Paal Anand has won Second Prize at the 9th Chianciano Biennale in Tuscany for Heracles Hurls Lichas, a monumental monochrome work from his ongoing Mythiq series. The award opens a busy international fall for Anand, who will show new work at the Barcelona Art Biennial on October 30 and return to Venice on November 6 to launch a new artist residency linking European institutions with Southern California.

Held August 15–29 in the Tuscan spa town of Chianciano Terme, the Biennale brought together 301 contemporary artists from more than 60 countries. Selected through an international open call, Anand's work was shown across fourteen historic and cultural venues, anchored by the Museo d'Arte di Chianciano and thirteen galleries in the town's medieval center.

At 112 by 162 centimeters, Heracles Hurls Lichas approaches the scale of a classical history painting. Printed in carbon pigment on cotton canvas, it depicts a tragic episode from Greek myth: poisoned by the Shirt of Nessus and maddened by pain, the dying Heracles seizes Lichas, the herald who unknowingly delivered the garment, and hurls him into the sea. Anand isolates the instant before the two bodies separate, one suspended against the other's violent momentum.

"Heracles Hurls Lichas is about a moment that can't be taken back, a man in unbearable pain turning it on the person closest to him," said Anand. "To have that image recognized in Italy, in the country whose sculptors taught the world how to hold a body in mid-air, means a great deal to me. These myths still describe us. We are always both Heracles and Lichas: the hand that casts out, and the body suspended in flight."

The Mythiq series uses living models, theatrical staging, and large-format monochrome photography to revisit the motion and emotional weight of classical sculpture. Before Tuscany, Heracles Hurls Lichas was shown in Shanghai at EKA-Tianwu as part of the Arte Laguna Prize 20th Anniversary Exhibition, the organization's first exhibition in Asia.

Anand's path to fine art runs through technology and cinema. A computer science graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara, he joined Alias|Wavefront at nineteen and contributed to foundational technology that became part of Autodesk Maya, now the industry standard for 3D animation and visual effects. He then spent more than two decades as a Hollywood visual effects artist on films including Hellboy, Pirates of the Caribbean, Ghost Rider, and The Italian Job.

"I've been working inside the question 'Can this be made possible?' ever since," said Anand. "Every series I've made starts with a different question."

That technical grounding shapes his printmaking. Alongside Mythiq, Anand produces Piezography Studies in multi-tone carbon pigment and Priceless Habitats, platinum and palladium prints on vellum embellished with gold and palladium leaf. His honors include fifteen Graphis Gold Photography Awards, Graphis Master status, and Fondazione Effetto Arte's 2025 Artist of the Year.

Anand's practice also extends into socially engaged installation. Earlier this year he created The Ward That Never Closed, a projected holographic installation in the Hospital of Emotions exhibition at the former St. Vincent Medical Center in Los Angeles. Developed with Veterans Stand Together, the work addressed the invisible wounds of military service and connected visitors with peer-support networks and the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

"My intention was never to dramatize loss," said Anand. "It was to give the inner lives of veterans the visible weight they have always deserved."

Since 2025, Anand has served as Vice-chair of the Culver City Arts Foundation, an all-volunteer nonprofit that works with the City of Culver City to present free public arts programming, including the Summer Sunset Music Series and the annual Culver City Arts Festival.

Anand’s European itinerary continues throughout the fall season:

• October 30, Barcelona: Anand presents Persephone and the Cheetah of Dionysus at the Barcelona Art Biennial at the Museu Europeu d'Art Modern (MEAM). The work draws on Orphic tradition, in which Persephone is the mother of the primordial Dionysus.
• November 6, Venice: At the opening of the Arte Laguna Prize exhibition, Anand will announce the Arte Laguna × Culver Arts international artist residency, a cultural bridge between European institutions and Southern California's creative community.

To learn more, users can visit: https://www.instagram.com/pa_fineart/

About Paal Anand

Paal Anand is a Canadian-born conceptual artist and fine-art photographer based in Los Angeles. A 2024 Arte Laguna Prize finalist who exhibited at the Arsenale in Venice, he is the Prize's 2026 USA Ambassador and an inaugural inductee into its World Hall of Fame. His work spans staged mythological photography, alternative and carbon-pigment printmaking, and immersive installation. More at paalanand.com and instagram.com/pa_fineart

Website: paalanand.com

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