Htein Lin has been painting and performing since childhood. He was member of many anyeint groups (comedy/drama) while at University, and was a comedian (Htein Htein) in several Burmese films 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.