Ruijun Shen was born in 1976 in Guangzhou, China. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Oil Painting from the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in 2000 and her two Master of Fine Arts in Painting from Montclair State University in 2004 and School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2007. She studies the history of self-reserved land in China, commenting on the power of self-cultivation as well-being and healing. She believes human beings live in situations where every object and event are interconnected, including our relationship to land and produce, which is forefronted in her gardening practice.

Shen has exhibited as part of The 6th Guangzhou Triennial, Guangzhou, China; The 8th International Ink Art Biennale of Shenzhen, Shenzhen, China; and the Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture, Shenzhen, China. She has held numerous solo and group exhibitions including at Pace Gallery, Beijing, China; Times Art Museum, Beijing, China; Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China; 33 Contemporary Art Center, Guangzhou, China; Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai, China; Daejeon Municipal Museum of Art, Daejeon, South Korea; Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow, Russia; MACRO (Museo de ArteContemporáneo de Roma), Rome, Italy; National Museum of 21st Century Arts, Rome, Italy; CUE Art Foundation, New York, NY; among others.

Shen’s works are in the permanent collections of the Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China; National Museum of 21st Century Arts, Rome, Italy; Tiroche DeLeon Collection, Israel; White Rabbit Collection, Australia; and Kadist Art Foundation, San Francisco, CA. Ruijun Shen is a recipient of the Toby Devan Lewis Fellowship as well as a Joan Mitchell grant. Shen currently lives and works in Guangzhou, China.