Damsel Undressed is an oil painting by Chinese-born, Pittsburgh-based artist Su Su. The image portrays the artist undressed with a dragonfly on her breast. This painting belongs to a body of work Su Su refers to as Bombyx paintings. Using a technique of her own invention, she creates these works by extruding oil paints from behind the silk, working in reverse. Gravity pulls the injected streams downward, creating a phantasmagoric forest of hair-like projectiles from which the haunting, uncanny image emerges. Su Su developed this technique as a material celebration of paint itself. Su Su’s work offers a new and unique understanding of intercultural exchange—a jittery, beautiful hybrid of mass media, pop culture, history, and memory with the capacity to shape our understanding of our interconnected world. By blending images of herself with references to traditional Chinese culture and art history, such as the dragonfly, the works speak to the complicated and confusing experiences Su Su has had as an immigrant to the United States. The title is a play on the trope of the “damsel in distress,” in this case the damsel being an empowered, creative being reclaiming her raw feminine power.