Two ships fill the picture field, their masts all but obscured by streaks of oil. One sits calmly on the water's surface as the other, trailing a fog of dark paint, lurches high above it as if in the act of sinking. It is not clear if these are two different ships, one perhaps ramming the other in an act of hostility, or in fact the same single ship portrayed in successive positions as it slips beneath the waves. Whitney Bedford paints such scenes from her own imagined memories of situations, places and events.