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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Saeed Kamali Dehghan

‘Making art made me feel free’: the prison paintings of Myanmar’s Htein Lin

Lots of figures drawn in bold white lines, showing the terrorof people fleeing attack and carrying their children, goods and animals
Htein Lin’s large finger-painted 2024 work, Fiery Hell, which portrays the plight of rural people fleeing as the army sets villages on fire. Photograph: Richard Koh Fine Art/Courtesy of the artist

The Burmese painter Htein Lin’s art bears the imprint of his years in a Myanmar jail, where he created hundreds of paintings using prison uniforms as his canvases and makeshift tools including syringes, soap blocks and cigarette lighters.

“I had no canvas, no brushes, no paint. But I had to make art,” says Htein Lin from his home in Myanmar’s Shan state. “I befriended the prison guards to smuggle in paint, scavenging for materials wherever I could.

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