Cally Trench's earlier paintings include portraits, and she exhibited with the Contemporary Portrait Society from 1986 to 1992.

Portrait of Dr Caroline M Fraser and Portrait of Mike Phillips were exhibited in Cally Trench's first solo exhibition (at Somerville College, Oxford in May 1985). Portrait of Dr Caroline M Fraser was exhibited with the Contemporary Portrait Society in the Bloomsbury Galleries, London in November 1985, and Portrait of Mike Phillips with the Contemporary Portrait Society in the Alpine Club Gallery, London in May 1986.

Reviews of Cally Trench's first solo exhibition in 1985.

Elizabeth Tom: Le Poer Trench (1985)

CT (Clova Tudor): Cally Trench (1985)

(Don Chapman): Cally le Poer Trench (1985)

Portrait of Robert Hill as the Japanese actor Ichikawa Ebizo and Portrait of Robert Hill as Sidney the Seal were both exhibited with the Contemporary Portrait Society in the Medici Gallery, London in 1992.

Cally Trench's earlier paintings of shelves border on trompe l'oeil.

Kitchen Shelf and Bookcase were exhibited in Cally Trench's first solo exhibition (at Somerville College, Oxford in May 1985).

Bookcase for Robin Waterfield's Bookshop depicts seventy books, only one of which exists. The others are books that appear in fiction, such as Harriet Vane's The Fountain-Pen Mystery and Sherlock Homes's Upon the Influence of a Trade upon the Form of the Hand; others are genuine but lost; some are jokes. The contents of the bookcase formed the basis of a competition published in the Antiquarian Book Monthly Review in 1988 to identify the 'best, most complete and wittiest' solution. In the days before the Internet, this was a significantly difficult feat.

In the 1980s, Cally Trench painted a number of landscapes, including Lucy Factory I (1986), which was bought by Oxford City Council.

Cally Trench took part in public art projects in the late 1980s and early 1990s, including flying her giant fish from towers at Carfax, Oxford, and making art on billboards.

Cally Trench's sea and river paintings reflect the combination of motion, pattern and stillness found in moving water. In many of them, the viewpoint is directly above - looking down onto and through the surface of the water. In some, the viewer or the artist's presence is implied by arms or a hand. In others, the viewpoint and scale are ambiguous.

Big Wave and Goldfish were exhibited in Red in Tooth and Claw at the Westgate Exhibition Room, Oxford, 1988.

Hand in the River was exhibited in Cally's two-person exhibition with Paul Amey at the Isis Boathouse, Oxford in 1990.

The Beach at Lyme Regis was exhibited in Cally's solo exhibition Air, Sea, Sand and Sky at Wycombe Museum in 1999.