With the country's art universities closed, Jiawei instead chose to join the Red Guards and, later, the People’s Liberation Army.

[citation needed] The piece was later altered by other government artists without Jiawei's permission, in order for the soldier's faces "to adhere to the regime’s standards for revolutionary art".

[3] In the 1980s, Shen made several history paintings, including Red Star over China (1987), which portrayed figures associated with the Long March, and Tolerance (1988), which depicted thinkers from the early Chinese Nationalist movement.

Because Shen chose to include individuals in his paintings who had been removed from official accounts, he faced some pushback from authorities.

[4] In 1995, Shen won the Mary MacKillop Art Award and received a medal from Pope John Paul II.

[2] Shen is also a painter of large-scale history pictures represented in major public collections; including the National Art Gallery of China and the Museum of the Chinese Revolution in Beijing.