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

The artist, who has an exhibition at Birmingham’s Ikon Gallery, created a unique body of work from jail uniforms, soap and lids while detained by Myanmar’s regime

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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