{"id":70399,"date":"2025-03-25T15:00:01","date_gmt":"2025-03-25T06:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2025\/mar\/25\/htein-lin-artist-myanmar-polticial-detainees-prison-paintings-ikon-gallery"},"modified":"2025-03-25T15:00:01","modified_gmt":"2025-03-25T06:00:01","slug":"making-art-made-me-feel-free-the-prison-paintings-of-myanmars-htein-lin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=70399","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Making art made me feel free\u2019: the prison paintings of Myanmar\u2019s Htein Lin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The artist, who has an exhibition at Birmingham\u2019s Ikon Gallery, created a unique body of work from jail uniforms, soap and lids while detained by Myanmar\u2019s regime<\/p>\n<p>The Burmese painter Htein Lin\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI had no canvas, no brushes, no paint. But I had to make art,\u201d says Htein Lin from his home in Myanmar\u2019s Shan state. \u201cI befriended the prison guards to smuggle in paint, scavenging for materials wherever I could.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2025\/mar\/25\/htein-lin-artist-myanmar-polticial-detainees-prison-paintings-ikon-gallery\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The artist, who has an exhibition at Birmingham\u2019s Ikon Gallery, created a unique body of work from jail uniforms, soap and lids while detained by Myanmar\u2019s regimeThe Burmese painter Htein Lin\u2019s art bears the imprint of his years in a Myanmar jail, wher&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":446,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546,91,919,2996,71,90,59,53,82,1554,2829,80,61,52,3274,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-art-and-design","category-aung-san-suu-kyi","category-birmingham","category-culture","category-exhibitions","category-global-development","category-human-rights","category-myanmar","category-painting","category-prisons","category-protest","category-south-and-central-asia","category-uk-news","category-video-art","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/446"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=70399"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70400,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70399\/revisions\/70400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=70399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=70399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=70399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}