In his relief etchings, Extraction and Presque Vu, Chen creates interactions between differing visual languages, at times shifting what they are suppose to mean: documentary photography (the past) and diagrammatic drawing (projective). Through overlapping and adjacencies of visual-symbolical categories, Chen's imagery explicates personal narratives and trans-cultural dynamics. These prints unearth the emotional landscape of a Chinese-American family's many generations' possible futures and pasts.

Through basic mathematical operations, Extraction traces the artist's line of descent--a genetic lineage that also discloses the artist's evolving identification with creative activity itself.