Htein LinBurma
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Born in 1966 in Mezaligon, northern Burma.
Currently lives and works in the UK
Bachelor of Law (LLB), Yangon University, Myanmar 1985-1988, 1993-4
Htein Lin has painted and performed since childhood. He was member of many anyeint groups (comedy/drama) while at University, and was a Burmese cinema comedian (Htein Htein) in the mid-1990s. He took part in the 1988 pro-democracy movement in Burma and spent four years in exile in India and Northern Burma in camps of the All Burma Students Democratic Front (ABSDF), a group opposed to the military government, where he studied art under Mandalay artist Sitt Nyein Aye, before returning to Rangoon to complete his law degree.
1996
The Little Worm in the Ear. Solo Show
Lawkanat Art Gallery, Yangon
Performance art: The Plastic Age and Guitarist
Street Performances: The Little Worm in the Ear, Lawkanat Gallery, Yangon
1997
31st. Solo Show (Myo Kyaw Art Gallery, Yangon)
Street Performance: The Present for the World. Lawkanat Gallery, Yangon
1999
Performance in Jail: 0 + 0 + 0 = 0. Mandalay
2001
Performance in Jail: The Fly. Myaung-Mya.
2004
Htein Lin was released from jail.
2005
Solo show (35/B Art Studio, Yangon)
(A one-day exhibition of paintings completed while a political prisoner in Mandalay and Myaungmya Jails, 1998-2004, on cotton cloth using various media & techniques. 00235 was the prisoner number given to Htein Lin by the Int'l Committee of the Red Cross.)
-Recycled. Solo show, Lawkanat Gallery, Yangon
-The Fly. Alliance Francais, Yangon
-Street Performance: Mobile Art Gallery/Mobile Market. With Chaw Ei Thein, Yangon. This performance was followed by 5 days detention and interrogation; it was adapted and repeated at Inya Gallery, Yangon after their release.
-Performance Art: On the Table. With Chaw Ei Thein. Saysaryar Gallery, Hlaingthaya, Yangon
-Performance Art: We Have Arrived in the World. Hnin-ka-gyo & Saysaryar Gallery, Hlaingthaya, Yangon
-Performance Art: Artist's Life. With Chaw Ei Thein. Hnin-ka-gyo & Saysaryar Gallery, Hlaingthaya, Yangon
-Performance Art: Standstill. Together with Recycled, Solo Show. Lawkanat Gallery, Yangon
2006
-Come Rain or Shine. Solo show, River Gallery, Yangon
-The Fly. NIPAF, Japan
-Performance Art: Artist's Life. With Chaw Ei Thein at Hnin-ka-gyo, Mandalay
-Performance Art: Escape.in collaboration with Finnish sound/installation/video artists Jari Haapera and Mirka Flander, Gitameit, Yangon
-Performance Art: Nippon Performing Arts Festival (NIPAF), Japan
-Artist in Residence, Rimbun Dahan, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in cooperation with Network Initiative for Culture and Arts (NICA), Yangon and Heinrich Boll Foundation
2007
-Asian Attitudes: group show in Poznan, Poland (July)
-Burma: Inside Out exhibition of prison paintings, Asia House, London July-Oct
-Led performance art workshop for 50 participants at Lost Generation Artspace, KL, Malaysia
-Artist's talk at Multimedia University, Kuala Lumpur
-Love & Anger.Suwunnabhumi Gallery, Chiang Mai, Thailand
Jury Panel, Heinrich Boll Foundation award for Myanmar Documentary Film-making Workshop
Tupada Performance art festival, Manila, Angono and Baguio, Philippines
-Artist's Talk, Asian Art Archive, Hong Kong
-Venice Biennale, Migration Addicts group show, curated by-DDM warehouse Shanghai, China
-B-S-urma Event. Galleria Vlivuosi, Helsinki, Finland
2008
-The Cell, solo show Karin Weber Gallery, Hong Kong
Htein Lin has also participated in group shows, including the Gangaw Village art group, at galleries in Yangon, and in London and contributed illustrations for magazines in Burma, including Padauk Pwin Thit and IDEA to which he also contributes poetry, short stories and articles.
Collections:
Two of Htein Lin's paintings have been purchased for the new US Embassy in Yangon. Others are in private collections in Belgium, Netherlands, Hong Kong, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, US and UK.
Born in 1966 in Mezaligon, northern Burma.Currently lives and works in the UK
Bachelor of Law (LLB), Yangon University, Myanmar 1985-1988, 1993-4
Htein Lin has painted and performed since childhood. He was member of many anyeint groups (comedy/drama) while at University, and was a Burmese cinema comedian (Htein Htein) in the mid-1990s. He took part in the 1988 pro-democracy movement in Burma and spent four years in exile in India and Northern Burma in camps of the All Burma Students Democratic Front (ABSDF), a group opposed to the military government, where he studied art under Mandalay artist Sitt Nyein Aye, before returning to Rangoon to complete his law degree.
1996
The Little Worm in the Ear. Solo Show
Lawkanat Art Gallery, Yangon
Performance art: The Plastic Age and Guitarist
Street Performances: The Little Worm in the Ear, Lawkanat Gallery, Yangon
1997
31st. Solo Show (Myo Kyaw Art Gallery, Yangon)
Street Performance: The Present for the World. Lawkanat Gallery, Yangon
1999
Performance in Jail: 0 + 0 + 0 = 0. Mandalay
2001
Performance in Jail: The Fly. Myaung-Mya.
2004
Htein Lin was released from jail.
2005
Solo show (35/B Art Studio, Yangon)
(A one-day exhibition of paintings completed while a political prisoner in Mandalay and Myaungmya Jails, 1998-2004, on cotton cloth using various media & techniques. 00235 was the prisoner number given to Htein Lin by the Int'l Committee of the Red Cross.)
-Recycled. Solo show, Lawkanat Gallery, Yangon
-The Fly. Alliance Francais, Yangon
-Street Performance: Mobile Art Gallery/Mobile Market. With Chaw Ei Thein, Yangon. This performance was followed by 5 days detention and interrogation; it was adapted and repeated at Inya Gallery, Yangon after their release.
-Performance Art: On the Table. With Chaw Ei Thein. Saysaryar Gallery, Hlaingthaya, Yangon
-Performance Art: We Have Arrived in the World. Hnin-ka-gyo & Saysaryar Gallery, Hlaingthaya, Yangon
-Performance Art: Artist's Life. With Chaw Ei Thein. Hnin-ka-gyo & Saysaryar Gallery, Hlaingthaya, Yangon
-Performance Art: Standstill. Together with Recycled, Solo Show. Lawkanat Gallery, Yangon
2006
-Come Rain or Shine. Solo show, River Gallery, Yangon
-The Fly. NIPAF, Japan
-Performance Art: Artist's Life. With Chaw Ei Thein at Hnin-ka-gyo, Mandalay
-Performance Art: Escape.in collaboration with Finnish sound/installation/video artists Jari Haapera and Mirka Flander, Gitameit, Yangon
-Performance Art: Nippon Performing Arts Festival (NIPAF), Japan
-Artist in Residence, Rimbun Dahan, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in cooperation with Network Initiative for Culture and Arts (NICA), Yangon and Heinrich Boll Foundation
2007
-Asian Attitudes: group show in Poznan, Poland (July)
-Burma: Inside Out exhibition of prison paintings, Asia House, London July-Oct
-Led performance art workshop for 50 participants at Lost Generation Artspace, KL, Malaysia
-Artist's talk at Multimedia University, Kuala Lumpur
-Love & Anger.Suwunnabhumi Gallery, Chiang Mai, Thailand
Jury Panel, Heinrich Boll Foundation award for Myanmar Documentary Film-making Workshop
Tupada Performance art festival, Manila, Angono and Baguio, Philippines
-Artist's Talk, Asian Art Archive, Hong Kong
-Venice Biennale, Migration Addicts group show, curated by-DDM warehouse Shanghai, China
-B-S-urma Event. Galleria Vlivuosi, Helsinki, Finland
2008
-The Cell, solo show Karin Weber Gallery, Hong Kong
Htein Lin has also participated in group shows, including the Gangaw Village art group, at galleries in Yangon, and in London and contributed illustrations for magazines in Burma, including Padauk Pwin Thit and IDEA to which he also contributes poetry, short stories and articles.
Collections:
Two of Htein Lin's paintings have been purchased for the new US Embassy in Yangon. Others are in private collections in Belgium, Netherlands, Hong Kong, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, US and UK.
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Htein Lin was jailed for 6 1/2 years and released in 2004. He now lives and works in London.
" Htein Lin sees himself as an artist, not a political activist. But while he regards art used in the service of politics as something that insults the value of both, he believes political events can inspire art, and those events can sometimes even swallow up an artist. When the artist emerges, he will be changed by the experience, and thereby become the painting, and no longer the painter."
Vicky Bowman
About the ' Cell ' paintings :
The Cell lies within and without my art. For six and a half years, the Cell comprised four walls around me, requiring me to find new ways to express myself, with new media and new techniques. My cell was inspiring and liberating. It required me to make the maximum use of the cells of my body to create my art, using my hands, my feet and my face to create an impression in the absence of brushes.
Since the protests of September 2007, new arrivals, many of them old friends, have once again filled the cells in Burma. The paintings in 'The Cell' series simultaneously reflect my past experience and pay homage to their current bravery and suffering. They were painted in freedom in London but their inspiration lies in Burma. According to Buddhist philosophy, we are all prisoners, seeking to escape Samsara, the cycle of rebirth.
Htein Lin
" Htein Lin sees himself as an artist, not a political activist. But while he regards art used in the service of politics as something that insults the value of both, he believes political events can inspire art, and those events can sometimes even swallow up an artist. When the artist emerges, he will be changed by the experience, and thereby become the painting, and no longer the painter."
Vicky Bowman
About the ' Cell ' paintings :
The Cell lies within and without my art. For six and a half years, the Cell comprised four walls around me, requiring me to find new ways to express myself, with new media and new techniques. My cell was inspiring and liberating. It required me to make the maximum use of the cells of my body to create my art, using my hands, my feet and my face to create an impression in the absence of brushes.
Since the protests of September 2007, new arrivals, many of them old friends, have once again filled the cells in Burma. The paintings in 'The Cell' series simultaneously reflect my past experience and pay homage to their current bravery and suffering. They were painted in freedom in London but their inspiration lies in Burma. According to Buddhist philosophy, we are all prisoners, seeking to escape Samsara, the cycle of rebirth.
Htein Lin
