1955年出生于中国，现居纽约。他早在中学，并继续在上海艺术学校（当时为“上海五七艺校”）开始接受艺术教育，1982年在上海戏剧学院获得学士学位后迁居北京。1988年获斯考海根艺术学院奖金作为驻校艺术家赴美，同年底又获工作室艺术学院交流学生奖，来到纽约。次年获全奖赴波士顿大学攻读硕士学位。1991年起定居纽约。
沈忱为80年代中国抽象绘画和实验水墨的先行者之一，并活跃于当时的“地下艺术沙龙”。三十年多来的艺术实作品使他在当今艺术界的影响力正逐渐扩大。他的作品“促动我们从美学的意义上对绘画的实践进行思考和领悟，开启新的理解途径和思维方式，持冥想且理性的姿态来体验纯粹而杰出的抽象绘画。”（罗伯特C.摩根）他的作品蕴含了多种文化因素，并以禅宗哲理，冥思和重复性阐译他对时间和空间的观念和知觉。魏丽莉写道：“这种知觉的消逝和再生，是为观众而建立并导其冥想的一种循环。其中，什么是真实，什么是虚无，实不可分。”法拉瑞。史密斯进一步指出“深思熟虑的制作过程，呈现出一片祥和世界 - 那儿，只有时间的存在。”沈忱的作品引领我们进入“...一个完整的循环;正如呼吸时从无到有，我们的思想体会到空无的万物之源。”（乔纳森•古德曼）
Born in China in 1955, Shen Chen is a New York based artist. He began his art education in high school and continued his training at Shanghai Art College (previously known as the Shanghai “5.7” Art School). He moved to Beijing after earning his BFA from the Shanghai Academy of Theater in 1982. In 1988, he came to the United States on a fellowship as artist in residence at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Later that year, he moved to New York upon receiving an exchange student fellowship from the Studio School of Painting and Sculpture. He continued his studies at Boston University on an MFA scholarship the following year. He has lived in New York since1991.
In the 1980s, Shen Chen was one of China’s pioneers of Chinese abstract painting and experimental ink painting. He was an active member of “Art Salon” (an underground art movement). After thirty years of practicing and creating art, Shen has become an artist with a profound influence in today’s art world, stirring “us to think and to perceive aesthetically, to open new conduits of perception and thought in the act of painting and in the reasoned meditative pose necessary to appreciate truly significant abstract painting.” (Robert C. Morgan) His work blends multiple cultural elements as he layers concepts of time and space with Zen philosophy, meditation, and repetition. Lilly Wei notes how, “in this perceptual vanishing and reconstitution, a cycle of meditation is established for the viewer in which what exists and what does not is inseparable.” Valerie Smith further emphasizes “what does emerge is a highly considered process that is immersive to a peaceful place where there is time.” His paintings transport us—they bring us “full circle; just as the breath moves from emptiness to plenitude, so does our mind appreciate the void out of which all things originate.” (Jonathan Goodman)
