"pained face" is correct and usable in written English.
You can use the phrase when describing an expression of discomfort or distress on someone's face; for example, "She frowned and her pained face revealed her inner turmoil."
Mr McGarrigle's pained face also appears in the People, and alongside it, pictures of several other people the paper believes are among the dead.
By and large, the set was a relatively faithful, albeit slicker, re-creation of the one he attempted last week, a performance that was broadcast live on the Web with every close-up of the artist's pained face making for gripping drama.
The hearing man nodded and made a similar pained face.
As Flanagan strode down a slight hill approaching 24 miles, her pained face foretold the last two miles.
In between swigs of beer my eyes kept returning to the pained face of one rider in particular.
We despair, and take on pained faces.
There are pained faces and a brittle atmosphere.
Hundreds of people, arriving with flowers and photographs and deeply pained faces, have quietly toured what they now reluctantly regard as a final resting place -- perhaps the only semblance of a graveyard the 5,000 or so lost will ever know.
The shadow fell across the pained faces of the 50 or so firefighters, police officers, construction workers and volunteers standing near what was the median strip of West Street.
You can mock the conservatism of their choices, but the Sound of awards seldom get it wrong: the minute the ballad Eyes Shut reaches its chorus, you're gripped by the certainty that the next series of X Factor is going to be crawling with people trying to escape the call centre by belting it out, while pulling pained faces and shaking their heads and doing expressive hand gestures.
