With Both Hands

This series of work came about one day last summer.

During a walk along the beach I was drawn to everyone’s ‘beach set ups’. While secretly taking photos of patterned towels and umbrellas, picnic spreads, plastic toys and rubber rings,  I started to think about how all those things got there, the thought and planning that went into everyone being fed and watered, dry and warm and entertained, basically everything that ensured a fun day at the beach was had by all. In that moment, I recognised that the true subject of my practice is love: the invisible labour that underpins shared experience, the hidden hands behind an event.

On returning to my role as an arts educator in September I found myself drawn to the activities prepared outside Year 1 and Reception classrooms -  the coloured fabrics, lego, wooden blocks, drawing and collage, small plastic animals, artificial grass….. and I saw this same care mirrored in the act of preparing an outdoor classroom. The thought, planning, and creativity that make a school a safe and inspiring space. The same invisible labour behind a school day that means everyone is going to be able to create, learn and feel safe and valued.

Whether through art or teaching, my practice celebrates unseen gestures of generosity and the quiet beauty of what is offered thoughtfully, and by hand, to others. The title of the show speaks to both the hands that give and those that make—the hands behind the gestures of love, as well as the hands that create the paintings themselves.

Biography

Kally Laurence works on large-scale canvases, combining printmaking and painting techniques. A graduate of the Royal College of Art with an MA in Printmaking, traditional printmaking remains central to her practice. Alongside this, she embraces the fluidity and immediacy of painting, enjoying the physical, hands-on nature of the medium. Her work comfortably inhabits the space between these two disciplines.

Kally’s practice is rooted in the everyday—its immediacy, quiet beauty, and the broader social and emotional meanings that ordinary objects and moments can carry. Through familiar scenes and materials, her work explores connection, routine, and lived experience.

Based in East London, Kally is a member of the Barbican Arts Group Trust studios and recently completed two years on the Turps Offsite Painting Programme. She exhibits regularly and is excited to be having this solo exhibition, ‘With Both Hands’, at Pictorem Gallery. Her work has been recognised through her shortlisting for the Jackson’s Painting Prize 2021, longlisted in 2022, and for the Beep Painting Prize in 2024.