Shen Yuan studied Chinese painting at the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts as the first group of students admitted after the Cultural Revolution. Upon graduating in 1982, Shen participated in experimental art in Xiamen and exhibited the piece Water Bed in the controversial China/Avant Garde exhibition in Beijing 1989. Moving in 1990 to Paris with her partner, the artist Huang Yang Ping, Shen largely produced installation works that lament the melancholy of exile and consider themes of migration, language, and identity in contexts of cultural schism.  She simultaneously denounces the system of her education in China and reflects on the invisible cultural and political barriers she faces in Paris through the exploration of juxtaposing natural and man-made materials. Specifically, she sees the role of art as a process that transforms inert material into something living that resonates in the viewer.