 Eventually, his art attracted the attention of the Central Asian-American Enterprise Fund, who offered him financial support, enabling him to hold further exhibitions.His work was recognised by the Korean government in 1997, when they awarded him with the Order of Culture Merit (); he then donated "Requiem" to the Museum of Contemporary Art.Aside from his own artwork, Shin also took up a teaching post at his alma mater, the Benkov Art School, despite the low salary; he became a mentor to his student Elena Lee, another Uzbekistani painter of Korean descent, whose work was featured in 2004 at an exhibition in Almaty, Kazakhstan.