Born in 1968 in Chengdu, Southwest China's Sichuan province, Shen studied printmaking at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute. He graduated in 1989 and participated in the China/Avant-garde Exhibition at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing. Widely regarded as a seminal event that pushed the '85 New Wave Movement to its peak, the exhibition displayed some of the most important works by China's first generation of contemporary artists.

Shen is often described as one of the neo-expressionist artists influenced by senior artists hailing from Southwest China, such as Zhang Xiaogang and Zhou Chunya. In his early career, he was best known for his works Three Tea Drinkers, The Lost Sky, Home – The Forgotten Memory, and The Red Series, all created in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The last three decades have seen the Chinese contemporary art market thrive. Many of Shen's contemporaneous artists rise to international fame, thanks largely to the "political pop" or "cynical realism" movements. However, Shen has maintained a standoffish or even detached attitude towards the art world. In 1998, he moved to the US, where he lived until 2008.

"Throughout my career, I've always stuck to only painting what touches my heart and what I have experienced. I've never made anything for the sake of being en vogue," Shen said in an interview in 2023 while holding a solo exhibition at the Long Museum in Chongqing.