About
Ruonan Shen (b. 2001) is a visual artist and photographer based in London. She is currently a student in University of Arts London in Interior Design. Working primarily with conceptual portraiture, Shen’s practice explores the aesthetics of identity, performance, and visual tension within constructed spaces.
Her recent works engage with gender expression and transformation, focusing on China’s emerging drag scene as a lens through which to question the boundaries of beauty, strength, and self-presentation. Shen creates highly staged environments that balance intimacy and control, presence and absence.
Drawing from minimal aesthetics, theatrical artifice, and emotional ambiguity, Shen’s photographs challenge normative visual codes while inviting moments of stillness and reflection. As an emerging artist, she is interested in photography not as documentation, but as reconstruction—a deliberate and quiet act of image-making on their own terms.
Exhibitions
The Essence Exhibition
Artly Mix, In Echos Studio, Brazil, 9 - 22 August, 2025
A Theatre of Cruelty Exhibition
Chinchinart, Safehouse 1, London, 9 - 13 August, 2025
ArtFlow, In Fitzrovia Gallery, London, 7 - 13 July, 2025
Broken Silence: Women’s Voices, Autonomy, and Well-being Exhibition
Funded by the University of Edinburgh, In Vitro Gallery, Edinburgh, 8 - 12 July 2025
2025 II MEDUSA Art Prize
LA FONDAZIONE D'ART TROSSI-UBERTI, ISOLART GALLERY, ASSOCIAZIONE NAZIONALE DI BELLE ART D'ITALIA, Livorno, 7 - 20 July, 2025
"ART PRIDE" Exhibition
Fox Yard Studio, Suffolk, 24 June - 1 July 2025
Dreams and Nightmares Exhibition
Boomer Gallery, London, 6 - 11 June 2025
“LIGHT & SHADOWS” Exhibition
Fox Yard Studio, Suffolk, 30 May - 10 June 2025