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This suite of drawings began during Pien's four-month Canada Council's Paris residency in 1998. During that time period the artist researched into the depiction of Western Hell and martyrdom. His interest was, and still is, in the visual representation of the discipline of the body, power relationships and the sense of vulnerabilities. Engendered by notions of Hell, fear is a tool many societies use for controlling and shaping ethical and moral behaviors and judgements. Since Pien see most treatment, discipline, punishment and torture as aspects of social and political control, in this suite of drawings he attempts to collapse the boundary among these different realities of Hell. Ultimately, awareness, self-empowerment and change can only begin from confronting one's fears as well as the forces that instigate power and control.