WHAT IS THE SUBJECT OF THIS PAINTING?

These trees - what are they, whitebeam, elm, sessile oak? They are doing something. They draw in the middle ground to the scrubbed rocks and twiggy shrubs above the river. The river itself is nothing but a bold slash dragging the viewer's eye along the oblique slate diagonal. The slatted one-storied farmhouse is partially obscured by the trees. Chimney smoke bleeds into the low rain-bearing clouds, and the adjacent aluminium barn swells like a tumour of light. It splits the sheep fields from the blue foothills that rise to needled peaks the colour of dried blood.

The piece is called Flight, so I'm looking for a sign: birds, an aeroplane, a young man running scared with a smoking gun… I scour the surface craquelure and impasto, taking in every inch, until I've narrowed it down to the tiny white face of a woman at a window staring directly out from the canvas. What's going on? Who is she? Where does she come from? What kind of expression is that? I mean, who on earth does she think she is looking at?

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