Karin Weber Gallery shows Htein Lin (Burma)

Wednesday, 05 March 2008 23:33

Hong Kong - “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.  The exhibition will open on 27^th March at 6.30pm – 8.30pm and run until 13^th April 2008 at Karen Weber Gallery.
 
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’ 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.  
 
"These paintings represent the desire to be released.”...Htein Lin
 
Htein Lin was released from jail in 2004.  “He 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 becomes the painting, and no longer the painter.”
 
Karin Weber Gallery is dedicated to showing fine international contemporary art by both emerging and established artists.  Exhibitions throughout the year introduce works by new artists with regular representation from Burma.